Neil Stern Quotations

What they've done is buy themselves some time. The challenge is, how long does it last? If you're still losing sales, those stores that are profitable today won't be profitable tomorrow.

Sears is a store that is designed for suburbia. They sell a lot of things like major appliances, barbecues and power tools that intrinsically go to people with bigger houses and garages and room to put this stuff.

Sears is a store that is designed for suburbia, ... They sell a lot of things like major appliances, barbecues and power tools that intrinsically go to people with bigger houses and garages and room to put this stuff.

If anybody can pull this off, it's Federated and it's Terry Lundgren and his leadership team.

I think their strategy is to be as ubiquitous as Walgreen's. They're a very good operator, a formidable rival to Walgreen's.

Tommy Hilfiger came in and created 300 shops. Now every one of the department store anchors has a Tommy shop and a Liz shop. It gave vendors more control, and it also was a real estate grab. There was no real defined reason to go to Marshall Field's because it has X, X and X that Carson's doesn't have.

Financially, it's not a bad quarter. The concern from a retail perspective is that top-line sales number. It's not where you want to be as an ongoing, viable retailer. ... Long-term, you don't want to be losing customers.

What they are finding so far internationally, is that when they have gone into a country and acquired or partnered with a successful established retailer they have done very well.

Every retailer is looking to generate more trips. It's certainly not a profit driver; it's being used as a traffic driver.

CVS has proven to be very successful in doing acquisitions.

Anna's Linen stores are mostly in what are called 'B' type locations or strip malls. We think that there's a lot of real estate currently available in that format. The other positive for the retailer is its appeal to ethnic communities, which we believe are underserved in the value-priced home furnishings arena.

Albertson's owns the ground under about 60 percent of their stores, including a fair amount in California. With Northern California real estate so difficult to come by, that has its own value.

They sort of crept over the border from the north, and are now sort of expanding into the northern suburbs and western suburbs.

There's definitely a few strong performers out there that have stayed under the radar.

It's a very small company right now but its got the right idea of providing a one-stop shop for specialty products catering to expectant mothers and young children,

It's a day of significant change for the food and drug markets in Chicago.

It's about personalization. And it's very easy, so anyone can do it and not be intimidated.

Forever 21 has the option to operate either a second format or convert those Gadzooks stores into its own brand,

It's the ultimate credibility to say, 'Go see who we are,'

It's almost a throwback concept. They're very clean stores. They're wholesome; very much focused on comfort food. They have very much a family orientation; a good mix of families and young kids.

It's perceptually indicative of how a brand is performing. If it's going down, that means their satisfaction is going down.

The volume is there, but the chain stores have to adapt their practices.

Their format is not only capital-intensive, it's people-intensive. Literally, they can't train people fast enough. Even if they have access to capital, from a human resources standpoint, they can't grow any faster.

If you do that kind of advertising, you better be able to execute at the store level. If you don't, you're really going to lose those customers.

In one deal, it makes Supervalu a major national player.

This is a company that came from Rochester, N.Y., ... It's not like they came from New York City or some sophisticated place. A lot of their stores are in middle-of-the-road places. In the past five or six years, they've realized if they can get a combination of density -- a lot of people -- and income, that that's where they shine.

An attractive aspect of this for them is that Albertson's owned a lot of the land under their stores. But there could be multiple reasons for buying these stores, including generating cash flow, the value of the real estate or to spin them off to another buyer.

A name is just a name. We have to see what the new Sears Grand format will sell and at what price. We'll have to see what the changes are.

A national place to register and buy wedding gifts is a huge advantage.

All the merchandise in Five Below is under $5, whether it's toys, sporting goods, novelty items or accessories, ... This is a retail concept that can potentially grow very, very fast.