Dive Brief:
-
Claire’s is opening shop-in-shops in about 21 Macy’s locations nationally, including eight flagship stores, the companies announced Tuesday.
-
The shops, which began opening this month, offer hair accessories, jewelry and cosmetics all year, as well as seasonal items, “including festive products for holiday parties and celebrations,” according to the companies’ press release.
-
Locations include Macy’s in Herald Square and Roosevelt Field in New York; South Coast Plaza in Los Angeles; Union Square in San Francisco; Dadeland and Aventura in Miami; Lenox Square in Atlanta; and Ala Moana in Honolulu, as well as Macy’s stores in Las Vegas and Orlando, Florida.
Dive Insight:
Collaborations among brands and retailers tend to be win-win scenarios for those involved.
For Claire’s, operating in Macy’s is an opportunity to reach new customers, according to a statement from CEO Ryan Vero. For Macy’s, it expands the jewelry and accessories assortment, according to a statement from Stephen Moore, the department store’s senior vice president of merchandising.
The tie-up also diversifies Claire’s retail footprint, per the release. In addition to concessions like these in North America and Europe, the accessories retailer, known for its ear piercing services, runs 2,300 Claire’s stores in 17 countries in North America and Europe and 190 Icing stores in North America. Abroad, the company also has more than 300 franchised Claire’s stores.
Other retailers’ shop-in-shops help Macy’s fill space left by the many departments that have been closed over the years. The department store has also brought Toys R Us shop-in-shops to all its stores in time for holiday shopping.
Such partnerships can only take a retailer so far, however. Sephora shop-in-shops weren’t able to do much for J.C. Penney, which two years ago was bought by two of its landlords out of bankruptcy. The department store lost that tie-up to rival Kohl’s, whose previous CEO touted the partnership as “game-changing.” The 600 Kohl’s stores with Sephora shops experienced a high-single-digit sales lift in the most recent quarter, but that didn’t prevent the retailer’s overall 7% revenue decline and 6.9% comp sales decline.
