Decades of distinct market knowledge ended up devalued and then simply disappeared, rolled up into a singular corporate branding and buying approach. But the forces of finance pushed for chain-wide savings ahead of doing something that might have helped the category: Staying closer than ever to shoppers. In effect, Macy’s stopped doing the one thing it was good at doing better than anyone else — something that might have saved it from obsolescence during tough times, from recessions to Amazon’s looming dominance in e-commerce.
The embrace of such a top-down strategy destroyed a once effective bottom-up buying and merchandising approach that was not only capable of meeting the unique market needs of local shoppers, but thrilling and delighting them as well. You might argue that Federated had Big Data before Big Data was a thing: It just wasn’t the kind of data visible at the corporate level. It was Big Data disaggregated — data inside the minds of experienced employees, the kind of local market knowledge a top-down buying process doesn’t really have. Corporate buyers might go on some store visits to flyover country, but a few field visits would never replace local knowledge gained from years of being on the sales floor.