Wednesday night, hump night. Spent the day with team doing some field intel gathering over at the Mall Of America. Nothing like an hour an half in Forever 21 and another hour in H&M to come to a few realizations about myself..
1) I am not Metro-Sexual in the least. There was nothing fun about womens fashion. There’s some interesting things going, I have an objective view of styles and fabric (thanks to my profession) I understand merchandising painfully well.. But fun? Fun like a colonoscopy.
2) Forever 21 is a great name for a store. There were an awful lot of broads, and I use that term for the accuracy of the image it generates, who were in fact, 3 of 4 decades away from being 21. I’m sorry ladies, at some point you have to give up the halter top. The girls just don’t look right when you’ve gone from a 36C to a 34Long.
3) A fat ugly middle-aged bald dude really has no business sitting in a womens store for and hour and half counting the number of people in there whilst waiting for the three women who work for him as they try on every garment in the place.
4) Should by beloved daughter buck trend and genetics and somehow become “buxom” at the age of 15, there’s no way in hell she’s ever going to leave the house, for that matter leave her room, “barley concealed”. There was an awful lot of that out there today.
That being said, that Forever 21 place is one hopp’n spot. Here we were on Wednesday afternoon, in the slow season with a troubled economy, and there was a line 6 deep to get one of the 20 fitting rooms they had available. Not to mention the cashiers were raking away… amazing as the stuff, while very stylish, and very very cheap, is also very very crappy when it comes to quality. We’re selling disposable clothes now apparently. There assortments were also, somewhat limited in depth, they seem to bring a few of each style, burn through it and move on to the next thing.
I was surprised to learn that most of the garments in the place were made in the USA. Turns out they have a ton of production in LA… hope yet for this countries garment industry.
Which BTW, is exactly what they’re selling over at H&M. Once touted as the Ikea of the fashion world, because of their design, low price points and Scandinavian roots, they’re starting to look a bit like yesterday’s news. I wasn’t too impressed. The stores non-retail displays were tired. The clothes were of very low quality.. but instocks were good and the many of the same folks I saw at Forever 21 were also in H&M.
I still hold however, that the best customer experience in the Mall can be hand at the Apple Store. Shiny happy people, who are equiped to complete your purchase ANYWHERE in the store, good knowledge of the products… and there are a TON of them in the store so you never really have to wait on help. Great job.
The only store that comes close is Franklin Covey. Too bad they’re selling a dead product that has a once a year ever shrinking market. I did find there seminars useful however, especially the one on “getting things done” or “how to become a Mormon without even trying”.
