Multiplying Macy's

Regional store names bow to national branding

ALLISON LINN
Associated Press

SEATTLE - Standing outside the Bon Marché department store in downtown Seattle, Marguerite Norbut lamented the day that workers replaced the sign she'd walked past for years with a new but familiar name: Macy's.

"I've seen it since I was a little girl!" said Norbut, 54, who grew up just across Puget Sound and has shopped at various "the Bon" stores in the Northwest her entire life.

But Norbut's daughter, Rachael, 22, heard a ring of urban sophistication, a reaction that would doubtless please the executives at Federated Department Stores Inc., Macy's parent company.

"I've always associated Macy's with California and the East Coast," the younger Norbut said.

For better or worse, it's the end of a retailing era for Seattle and other cities around the country.

Beginning Sunday, customers of the Bon, Rich's, Goldsmith's, Burdines and Lazarus will lose -- at least in name -- the regional department stores that have been around for more than a century. Federated is rechristening them under the national Macy's brand.

Longtime shoppers have had the opportunity to get used to the change -- Federated had already begun hyphenating "Macy's" onto the more familiar store names before deciding to get rid of the regional names altogether. Dan Edelman, chief executive of Macy's Northwest, said Federated decided to drop the hyphenations after customer surveys showed that most would not find the name change to be a negative.

The loss of regional branding is likely to continue with Cincinnati-based Federated's proposed merger with The May Department Stores Co., announced earlier this week. Spokeswoman Carol Sanger said the merger will likely mean that many of May's regional department stores also eventually become Macy's stores, although she said the company was still considering what to do with two of May's best-known brand names: Lord & Taylor and Marshall Field's.

But the company says the Hecht's name is all but certain to change to Macy's, meaning the Charlotte area stands to gain as many as three Macy's stores from the scheduled changeover. Hecht's has a recently remodeled store at SouthPark and another at Carolina Place in Pineville. Another Hecht's store is under construction at the Northlake Mall scheduled to open in September at Interstate 77 and W.T. Harris Boulevard.

Officials say it's too soon to give specifics on local change-over plans.

Analysts say the name changes are inevitable, because they save Federated money and give it the much-needed ability to market itself nationally and compete better against other national brand names ranging from The Gap Inc. to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Along with the name change, the company plans a national television campaign, and it is touting other advantages such as easier national return policies and nationally branded store credit cards.

Still, some longtime shoppers think it's bad business to scrap a popular local brand name such as Rich's in Georgia.

"I don't know why they would want to drop the name. In Atlanta, it's as recognizable as Coca-Cola," said Elizabeth Brown, a retired schoolteacher from Marietta, Ga., who was shopping at a Rich's mall store in Kennesaw, a northern suburb of Atlanta.

The company insisted it is taking pains to keep some regional feeling despite the name change.

Edelman said the former Bon will have its own promotional calendar and flexibility in carrying clothing that fits regional weather. The Northwest stores also will still sell the well-loved Frango mints.

But Marshal Cohen, chief analyst with The NPD Group, argued that many of Federated's regional department stores have already lost much of their individual personalities after years of answering to a corporate parent, making the name changeover more of a formality.

"Was Burdines so different from a Macy's? No, not anymore," he said.

The name changes also left some reminiscing about the days when going to a department store was an event. Louetta Payne, 70, remembered dressing up for a trip to her local Rich's, and spending the better part of a day there.

"Those days will never come back, and I'm not saying they're better than now," she said as she browsed a clearance at a Lazarus-Macy's outside of Columbus, Ohio. "It's just that there was a pride to it. What you bought there was unique."