Bloomingdale's & Federated Department Stores

Federated began in 1929 when Fred Lazarus, who then controlled the giant Columbus, Ohio department store F. & R. Lazarus and the oldest department store west of the Alleghenies, John Shillito Company, met with three other retailers to bring about a merger forming one of the loosest federations in American corporate history. The other three retailers were Walter Rothschild of Abraham & Straus, based in Brooklyn; Louis Kirstein of Filene's in Boston; and Samuel Bloomingdale, head of Bloomingdale's in Manhattan. The reason for forming this federation was to reduce vulnerability to local economic fluctuations. The new company had no head office, though it did create one in 1945 in Cincinnati. It continued to be run by powerful, well

. . .
a "preselling" program as salespeople keep lists of customers to call about promotions and new items. Bloomingdale's salespeople have been retrained and the stores offer new services wanted by customers, such as changing tables for babies in both men's and women's rooms, free coffee, and exit interviews intended to see what shoppers want. Business has improved considerably with these tactics (Zinn, 1992). Bloomingdale's stores have been redesigned in a number of ways. Renovations were undertaken at 16 stores in 1996 to incorporate user-friendly design and merchandising techniques developed at the store in Skokie, Illinois. Store redesigns were also set for the six Broadway stores in California being converted into Bloomingdale's stores. Michael Gould succeeded Marvin Traub as CEO in 1991 and undertook changes that would make the stores more appealing to consumers. Gould wanted a design that was dramatically different. Commentators believe, though, that the battle may be won or lost not on redesign but on service. For this purpose, the company hired 50 trained "selling experts" at the Skokie store to supplement the regular sales staff (Chandler, 1995). Part of the changes at Bloomingdale's has been an expansion program br
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
SITUATION Bankruptcy, Bloomingdale's Retail, Bloomingdale's York, Traub CEO, Inc Burdines, Apodaca Hayes, California York, Bloomingdale's Manhattan, American Business, PERSONNEL POLICIES, department stores, business week, department store, angeles times, los angeles, los angeles times, handbook american business, business 1995, 1996 november, hoover's handbook, johnson 1996, american business 1995, handbook american, hoover's handbook american, federated department stores,
Approximate Word count = 2163
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)