Macy's-The Asteroid that Killed Retail- REPOST 2025 The sign says, "Coming sooner than you think"

Not too long ago, I wrote The Evolution Solution, which explained the rise of Amazon and the Category Killers according to Darwin’s Theory of Survival of the Fittest. 

The evolution of all events on Earth is part and parcel of natural history, therefore is subject to the same rules and principles. This includes the evolution of retail business in US and globally.

66 million years ago, a huge asteroid hit earth, forming the Chicxulub Crater in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. The effects of this cataclysmic event resulted in the death of 75% of the plant and animal species on earth- including dinosaurs and creatures who had existed for something like 165 million years previous. The balance 25% were those who were able or enabled to survive and grow after the event.

Fast Forward to December 19, 1994. Federated Department Stores “bought” Macy’s (but yet it was Macy’s management that ran the show and still is). Eleven years later, in 2005, Fedmacys bought May Company Stores, completing the hat trick the same year with the purchase of Broadway Stores. By March 2005, All units were converted to Macy’s stores. The other names, their histories, and maybe their loyal followings, were dead.

Look at the list of those stores sanitized to be Macy’s (Wikipedia, The Dead Department Stores–you can see the rest of the names in the graveyard here:

·      Abraham & Straus (Macy's in 1995)

·      D. M. Read Macy's In 1990

·      Ames (Eastpoint)

·      Bamberger's (Macy's in 1986)

·      The Bon Marché (Macy's in 2005)

·      C.C. Anderson's Golden Rule (The Bon Marché in 1923)

·      The Paris (The Bon Marché in the early 1980s)

·      Barnes-Woodin Co. (Yakima, Washington, The Bon Marché in 1952)

·      Columbia River Mercantile

·      A. M. Jensen's (Walla Walla, Washington, The Bon Marché in 1951)

·      Missoula Mercantile Co. (Missoula, Montana, The Bon Marché in 1981)

·      Montague-McHugh (Bellingham, Washington, The Bon Marché in the 1950s)

·      Runbaugh-Mclain (Everett, Washington, The Bon Marché in 1952)

·      Stone-Fisher Co. (Tacoma, Washington, The Bon Marché in 1952)

·      Russell's (The Bon Marché after World War II)

·      Bullock's (Macy's in 1996)

·      Bullocks Wilshire

·      Burdines (Macy's in 2005)

·      Maas Brothers

·      Carter Hawley Hale Stores (merged into Macy's West 1996)

·      The Broadway (Southern California). Headquartered in Los Angeles.

·      Emporium-Capwell (Northern California)

·      Capwell's (East Bay)

·      The Emporium (San Francisco and South Bay, North Bay)

·      Hale Bros. (San Francisco and Sacramento)

·      Weinstock's (Sacramento and Reno)

·      Davison's (Macy's in 1986)

·      The F & R Lazarus and Co. (Macy's in 2005)

·      Shillito's

·      Rike Kumler Co. (Rike's)

·      William H. Block Co. (Blocks)

·      Joseph Horne Co. (Horne's)

·      Herpolsheimer's

·      Famous-Barr (Macy's in 2006)

·      William Barr Dry Goods Co.

·      The Famous Clothing Store

·      Filene's (Macy's in 2006)

·      Filene's Basement (separated from Filene's in 1988, closed in 2011)

·      G. Fox & Co.

·      B. Peck & Co. (sold to Gamble-Skogmo, Inc.)^[1]

·      Steiger's

·      Foley's (Macy's in 2006)

·      May-Daniels & Fisher

·      Daniels & Fisher

·      May Company Denver

·      The Denver Dry Goods Company

·      Z.L. White

·      Sanger-Harris

·      A. Harris

·      Sanger Brothers

·      Gold Circle (discount store chain) Founded in 1967 by Federated; merged into Richway in 1988 and later dismantled during 1990 bankruptcy

·      Gold Triangle (discount store chain for electronics, appliances, home building supply, sporting goods, photography, housewares) Founded in 1970 - closed in 1981, 6 Florida locations - 3 Miami, Plantation, Tampa and Orlando.

·      Goldwater's

·      Goldsmith's Merged into Rich's in mid-1980s. (Macy's in 2005)

·      Hecht's (Macy's in 2006)

·      Castner Knott (Hecht's in 1998)

·      Miller & Rhoads (Hecht's in 1990)

·      Strawbridge's (Macy's in 2006)

·      Thalhimers (Hecht's in 1990)

·      Woodward & Lothrop

·      I. Magnin, owned by Federated 1965-1988 and R.H. Macy Co. 1988-1994; most stores closed 1988-1993, remainder of stores converted to Macy's West and Bullock's or sold to Saks Fifth Avenue. Union Square, San Francisco location eventually incorporated into adjacent Macy's.

·      John Wanamaker or Wanamaker's (Philadelphia and New York City flagship stores), sold to Carter Hawley Hale in 1979, then Washington DC-based Woodward & Lothrop owned by Alfred Taubman; sold to May Company in 1995; merged with Federated Department Stores in 2005 (now known as Macy's, Inc.)

·      The Jones Store (Macy's in 2006)

·      Jordan Marsh (Macy's in 1996)

·      Kaufmann's (Offices merged with Filene's in 2002, Macy's in 2006)

·      May Company Ohio

·      O'Neil's (department store)

·      Stark Dry Goods - Canton (department store)

·      Sibley's

·      William Hengerer Co.

·      Strouss-Hirshberg

·      L.S. Ayres (Macy's in 2006)

·      Stewart's

·      H. & S. Pogue Company

·      Wolf and Dessauer

·      Liberty House (Macy's in 2001)

·      Marshall Field's (Macy's in 2006)

·      Dayton's (Marshall Field's in 2001)

·      Frederick & Nelson (defunct in 1992)

·      The Crescent (department store) (defunct in 1992)

·      Lipman's

·      Halle Brothers Co.

·      Hudson's (Marshall Field's in 2001)

·      J.B. Ivey & Co.

·      Meier & Frank (Macy's in 2006)

·      Zions Cooperative Mercantile Institution (Meier & Frank in 2001)

·      O'Connor Moffat & Co., purchased by R.H. Macy in 1945, renamed Macy's in 1947. Their Union Square, San Francisco location is Macy's flagship West Coast store and headquarters of Macy's West.

·      Rich's (Macy's in 2005)

·      Robinsons-May (Macy's in 2006)

·      May Company California (Robinsons-May in 1993)

·      Hamburger's

·      J. W. Robinson's (Robinsons-May in 1993)

·      Steiger's (May in 1994)

·      Stern's (Macy's in 2001)

·      Gertz

The list above comprises 85 distinguished, in some cases legendary, units that became extinct by 2005. Just like the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. Only this time the asteroid, the destructive force for those store units and their customers, was Macy’s/Federated. Also like the dinosaurs, maybe more than 100 years, wiped out.

Do you remember these stores? Maybe your mother or grandmother took you there as a child? Did you go there to see Santa? These stores were more than just memories; like Bailey Savings and Loan in It’s a Wonderful Life, they were neighborhood institutions with loyal followings.

I know. I worked as a buyer at Abraham & Straus before this merger. A&S, as it was known by its customers, was the leading unit of Federated, competing (favorably) with Macy’s for the attention of the New York City area shopper. A&S was moderate priced, though not immune to sales, which people took seriously because they WERE serious-not marketing BS.

There were many local units in the NYC area at the time- There were the “carriage trade” department stores- Saks, Lord& Taylor, Martin’s, Gertz(look at them now-two gone and two a shell of what they were), then the Moderate-Macy’s, A&S, Stern’s, Bamberger’s. Below them were the discounters-EJ Korvette, Mays.And the few who stood alone as the fashion arbiters-Bergdorf Goodman, Bloomingdale’s (which latter is the only Federated unit not renamed Macy’s- though you wouldn’t recognize it if you saw it then). Each had its disntinctive niche and its loyal following.

Now we have Macy’s- trying to be all things to all people. Which never works. So then we have the 25% survivors-those velociraptors who saw the opportunities to feast on the suddenly open environment. Is it any coincidence that Amazon also began in 1994?

And what about the loyal customers in EVERY major city and region in the US? What were they left with? Those stores which had been a part of their lives-gone. Replaced by-who? Macy’s. Famous for the Miracle on 34^thStreet, but not about catering to customers in Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, Miami, San Francisco, Akron, etc. Did Macy’s distinguish itself with superior merchandise to what had been there before? Not in my opinion. 

And when it came to the sales and promotions that brought people in passionate droves, did Macy’s do a better job than the dead souls that had been there before? Not in my opinion. Macy’s quickly trained the customers with predictable behavior what and when to buy.

What was gained and what was lost in this transition from distinguished regional and local department stores?

Gained- NOTHING. Only the arrogant satisfaction of Macy’s management knowing their previously local name had been proliferated nationwide. The merchandise was not better; the prices were not better; the service was not better.

Lost- 

For the Customers: A comfortable, trusted shopping place where their momma took them and where they take their kids; 

For the Retail Business- Instead of a dynamic local or regional retail department store environment, the entire nation is sanitized to one store, one name. Maybe, in some regions, one that they don’t know or trust.

Imagine if Baskin-Robbins (and every ice cream shop nationwide), eliminated all flavors but one-vanilla. What would be the fate of their business? People would learn to eat somewhere else.

Somewhere else- Amazon, Zara, H&M, Uniqlo. The Category Killers are the velociraptors who were invitedby this arrogant marketing move to build a customer base. For parents, there was no comfortable destination; for their children, left as orphans of a bygone era, left to make their own friends.

The result is clear and obvious- the demise not only of the regional department store, but of the department store in general as a shopping destination. Don’t underestimate the role that this played in today’s retail “apocalypse.”

What could Macy’s have done differently? Leave it alone. Buy it, and see the wisdom to keep the regional and local customer base coming. Many areas-merchandising, sourcing, logistics, etc. and economies of scale could be applied in a group situation. Without burying the locals.

I believe now you can see how the Macy/Federated buyout was akin to the asteroid hitting earth 66 million years ago; its destructive force wiped out life as it was before, and impoverished a rich department store culture.

Also, I hope you can see, again, how retail business is governed by the same rules and principles as all other natural history. And that Darwin probably had no clue how far reaching his principles of natural selection were. 

Final note: Break up Macy’s and give people back their local commerce? Would work, even in Amazon World.

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Is Recycling the Answer to the Textile Clothing Catastrophe? Nice, but NO.

  

 

A landfill in Ghana (contents no way all came from there)(source)

Is Recycling the answer to the Textile Climate Catastrophe? Nice, but no.

(Mainly Facts and Inescapable Conclusions-Let’s solve the problem together!)

First, the facts:

What is the extent of the problem?

According to businesswaste.co.uk (source):

• 100 billion new garments are produced annually around the world

• The worldwide fashion industry is responsible for 10% of all greenhouse gas emissions

• The UN Environment Programme estimates that today people buy 60% more clothes and wear them for half as long

• Around 20% of worldwide industrial wastewater pollution is from the fashion industry

• It takes around 2,700 litres of water to make one cotton shirt

• Of all the clothing thrown away across the world 57% is sent to landfill

• 25% of global clothing waste is incinerated

• Clothes made using synthetic fibres such as polyester and acrylic are responsible for more than 60% of global apparel purchases

• Synthetic fibres take 80 to 800 times longer to decompose than natural fibres like cotton

The solution to the problem, if we want to face it, lies within the above facts.

Not done yet. There’s more:

• About 5% of landfill space is taken up by textile waste

• Textile production releases 2 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere annually

• Producing textiles creates 42 million tonnes of plastic waste each year

• 10% of microplastics that enter the ocean every year are from textiles

• Around 15% of fabric used to manufacture garments is wasted

• Less than 13% of textile waste is recycled in the European Union (EU)

• 72% of bedding ends up in landfill

• Textiles are the third largest category of waste in landfill sites across India

• Natural fibres break down fastest – cotton takes around three months to decompose, linen takes a few weeks, and silk takes one to two years

• Synthetic textile waste takes much longer to decompose – polyester can take between 20 and 200 years to break down, nylon takes anywhere from 30 to 40 years, and rubber takes 50 to 80 years

And how about fast fashion? It is atop the most unwanted list:

• How many times an item of clothing is worn before being discarded has fallen by 36% in the last 15 years

• Fast fashion brands produce 50% more items today compared to the year 2000

• An average American throws out 37kg of clothes every year

• Buying a single white cotton shirt produces the same emissions as driving 35 miles in a car

• Extending clothing life by nine months would reduce carbon, water, and waste footprints by 20 to 30%

• Using clothes for an extra nine months would also save £5 billion in resources used to supply, launder, and dispose of clothes

Now, let’s look at fiber production:

• Global fiber production per person has increased from 8.3 kilograms in 1975 to 14.6 kilograms per person in 2022.

• Polyester production volumes increased from 61 million tonnes in 2021 to 63 million tonnes in 2022. Polyester continues to be the most widely produced fiber, making up 54% of the global market in 2022.

• Recycled textiles’ market share slightly decreased from around 8.5% in 2021 to 7.9% in 2022. Pre- and post-consumer recycled textiles accounted for less than 1% of the total global fiber market in 2022. (source)

So, is recycling the answer? Let’s see. More facts:

“Textiles collected via clothing containers consist of 55% reusable textiles and an average of 37% suitable for recycling (Boer Group figures). But how much of this is actually recycled? In reality, only 1% of all post-consumer textiles are recycled into new clothing. 12% is downcycled into something of lesser value and 87% of textile waste is pure loss. The amount of clothes that is recycled is thus much lower than the marketing campaigns of the big fast fashion chains would suggest.” (source)

Recycling is not the “magic bullet” for textile environmental erosion. Here are some more facts (source):

• Recycled clothes are recycled mechanically and chemically. Those with more than one fiber are recycled chemically, with one of the fibers being lost in the process

• Even clothes that are 100 percent polyester can’t be recycled forever. There are two ways to recycle PET: mechanically and chemically. Mechanical recycling is taking a plastic bottle, washing it, shredding it and then turning it back into a polyester chip, which then goes through the traditional fibre making process. 

• The polyester chips generated by mechanical recycling can vary in colour: some turn out crispy white, while others are creamy yellow, making colour consistency difficult to achieve. Some dyers find it hard to get a white, so they’re using chlorine-based bleaches to whiten the base, inconsistency of dye uptake makes it hard to get good batch-to-batch colour consistency and this can lead to high levels of re-dyeing, which requires high water, energy and chemical use.

• According to a study by a team from Plymouth University, in the UK, each cycle of a washing machine could release more than 700,000 plastic fibres into the environment. To help prevent microplastic pollution when washing items you can place them in a filter washing bag to prevent shedding during the wash.

So it seems that recycling synthetics like polyester, which the above said were 54% of global production, may be causing more harm than good.

How about donating my old clothes? Is that the answer?

Sadly, no. Only a small percentage of those gently used clothes that you donate actually get worn by those who need them. More facts: (source)

• Consider: only between 10 and 30 percent of second-hand donations to charity shops are actually resold in store. The rest disappears into a machine you don’t see: a vast sorting apparatus in which donated goods are graded and then resold on to commercial partners, often for export to the Global South.

• The problem is that, with the onslaught of fast fashion, these donations are too often now another means of trash disposal—and the system can’t cope. Consider: around 62 million tons of clothing is manufactured worldwide every year, amounting to somewhere between 80 and 150 billion garments to clothe 8 billion people.

• The only way that donating is a solution is for you to give unwanted garments DIRECTLY to someone who needs them, or find an organization who does so.

Above I have presented the facts. Now what should we do and not do (my conclusions)?

• DON’T stop recycling your old clothes by sending to a reputable recycler. It is better than throwing them away. BUT it is not the solution to the problem.

• DON’T think that selling your clothes to a secondhand shop or web store is resolving the problem. You may be making money, but in the end you are transferring the problem to someone else.

• DON’T BUY SYNTHETICS- NONE, NEVER, EVER, NO MATTER WHAT THE AD OR THE COMPANY SAYS. They are a ticket to nowhere.

• DON’T be swayed by the promise of discounts and unbelievably cheap prices. Losing your planet will be expensive.

• DO face the facts. You may be only one person, but you ARE part of the problem, unless you:

• DO buy less and buy better- Practice Wabisabi as your lifestyle

• DO Buy only what you need. ONLY buy clothes you can use for many occasions (multifunctional) and that are sustainable once they do die.

• DO stop buying crap because its “cute” or “so cheap” or both.

• DO look at your closet and take a serious inventory of what you can wear where and when. DO stop buying until you’ve figured that out.

One Amsterdam company, Cosh! Has a “Wear for Life” pledge on their website. It  looks like this: (source)

Will you take this pledge? For Life? Hopefully, that’s a long time, but not practical. How about for several years? By how much would the Ghana landfill shrink if all your clothing could last for years?

OK, here comes the commercial part, stay with me. Rectifying the situation laid out for you above is the founding mission of Lotus & Michael. “People, Planet, Product”—

• We want to make people so happy with their clothes that they want to wear them all the time;

• Nothing we do harms our planet- NO plastic in any phase of our supply chain; Plant dye fabrics to eliminate chemical pollution;

• If we make Product you love, and is of high enough quality to last, we have contributed to a solution for a catastrophic issue.

Still have doubts? Google it for yourself. If you find disputing evidence, send it to us. If not, join us—we have a lot of work to do!

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Are your denim jeans sustainable? Maybe the cotton is, but how about the dyestuffs and spandex?

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We are the future, saving the past for the present!

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A Slow Afternoon In A Man's Lotus & Michael Wonderland

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