Howard Davidowitz Quotations

The performance of the company over the last few years has been very erratic. It's also a smaller player. It was time for Milstein to take it easy and make a gigantic pot of money and turn the ball over to someone else.

There is no loyalty to a store -- that's what Federated has gone to school and found out. The place with the best product at the right time and at the right price, that's where the customer loyalty is.

Unions are focused on this company and these lawsuits are only increasing, ... The other thing that both shareholders and analysts will focus on is: Where does Wal-Mart go from here? In other words, what is next in terms of its growth?

We've been in a complicated marriage with the French for over 50 years now, and we'll be married to them forever,

The real estate has shrunk by more than 50 percent and is going to be shrunk again,

When you're a cash cow like Federated, you should invest in a growth business and not another buggy whip company.

Lean inventories won't help retailers this year if they can't lure customers into their stores.

Sears is a shaken-up company, and who knows when it will recover, ... are wonderful.

Sears is an American institution that's getting beaten up, ... The company is trying everything it can to stay in business but it's still losing market share everywhere.

May has paid a crazy amount of money for what many think is a declining asset. Not all of the Marshall Field's locations make sense to May, especially in areas where the Field's stores overlap with its stores. I think the company will try to recoup some of that money, the hefty premium it paid for the chain.

May has paid a crazy amount of money for what many think is a declining asset, ... Not all of the Marshall Field's locations make sense to May, especially in areas where the Field's stores overlap with its stores. I think the company will try to recoup some of that money, the hefty premium it paid for the chain.

One big difference was that last year retailers kept promotions under tight control. Things were more panicky this year.

Of course retailers don't want rain today. It just sours the mood of shoppers. But if there's stuff that people really want to buy today, they'll still go out and get it,

No. 1, Houston, Texas, is known for a lot of parties.

New York has gotten more casual, Chicago has gotten more casual but Houston is still kind of formal when it comes to socializing.

Business died for a few days, you've got a ton of inventory, so what do you do? You turn lemons into lemonade and make the week after Christmas more important with super sales and promotions.

Barneys is much edgier, much more fashion-forward, and much younger than Saks.

I have never believed that they're going to attract top dollar.

Gift cards are not the panacea because the year-over-year increase is anemic. Because the markdowns in January will be more than last year, retailers will see less dollar impact of additional sales from gift cards compared to last year.

For me, the big question is what is Wal-Mart going to do to improve sales,

From a very simplistic point of view, consumers will probably start to see better prices and better quality of goods. When the quality and price is right, consumers shop more frequently and they buy more.

Furniture doesn't typically spell romance. A sporting goods store is another off-beat destination. I mean, what would you get? A paddle, a tennis racquet?

There is a high likelihood of lower prices, ... The department store segment is a supplier's worst nightmare. Department stores demand more allowances from vendors, they want to be able to return inventory if it doesn't sell well. A Federated-May merger could be an even worse scenario for the suppliers.

What is behind everything that Luxottica has done worldwide is, they get so powerful they can fry the suppliers' brains out. If you're an independent seller of eyewear, you have a problem. You have to live on service and relationships and fashion and all of that, but it's very difficult to compete with somebody who is buying the same product for less.

He's a brilliant financial engineer. His record is always the same: cut costs, sell assets. That's terrific, only that's no way to run a retail business.

He's a brilliant financial engineer, ... His record is always the same: cut costs, sell assets. That's terrific, only that's no way to run a retail business.

Here they are with similar size stores to Bed, Bath & Beyond. They're in similar kinds of locations. And they're in similar kinds of demographics,

He's done an incredible job of buying $100 worth of real estate for a dollar.

has been trying very hard to do that for a long time. So far they have been left with a giant loss of market share.

Kinko's is under assault, and I think what Kinko's is doing is totally rational.

Kmart went into bankruptcy a cadaver and it'll come out of it a cadaver,

Kmart said it closed its worst performing stores because it couldn't maintain inventory once its vendors cut themselves off. Now that the stores are shuttered and inventory is up, Kmart is still doing less business than before. The company is still losing money and market share. I'm not sure the company can get past Christmas.

Is Wal-Mart going after the Hispanic and African-American consumers? Absolutely. They're a significant percentage of Wal-Mart shoppers,

I think its a brilliant strategy. Make small improvements that will boost sales even 4 to 5 percent over the next few years and that could lead to a dramatic turnaround for the company,

Lacy is 100 percent accountable. This is supposed to be one of his biggest areas of expertise. He supposedly fixed this problem before and here we go again. The bottom line is, who's supposed to be watching?

I think this is terrific for consumers. Telemarketers will simply have to reallocate money to more direct mail, television, radio and print advertising,

I think this is terrific for consumers, ... Telemarketers will simply have to reallocate money to more direct mail, television, radio and print advertising.

I think the advertisers are going to go away. She's tarnished. And in looking to the future will she plead guilty? If you're an advertiser, you're facing a woman who may go on trial.

I think the Securities and Exchange Commission better look at this because what you've got is prior misstatement,

I think there's a message to Martha in here, and part of this may be negotiation.

I think there will be heavy promotions over the holidays because retailers have not been meeting their sales plans.

I think there are major risks in sales and margins when you're a middleman. More and more companies are buying direct and don't see a need for Helen of Troy. Their brands are not that powerful, ... This doesn't mean it can't bounce back. They have to be shrewd and quick to right the ship.

I think the real story last month was that in spite of higher interest rates, exploding energy costs and debt levels, the American consumer rolls on.

Kohl's is struggling badly. Not only are the not meeting sales targets, there are several questions swirling about recent management changes,

Kohl's could be interested in buying a few of the Mervyn's stores as it expands its presence in the state.

Penney had no choice but to improve on fashion.

Over the last year, they lost $60 million,

Retailers have planned their inventories very well again this year but there's no point in that if you get can't shoppers into your store. Expect substantial deals as we go along, especially in clothing and consumer electronics.

Retailers are going to promote like gangbusters from the first minute, and it's going to affect margins. I think at best it's going to be fair.

Steve is very familiar with taking properties like that and making them profitable.

State Street is now becoming very valuable property, and Carson's lease is way under-market.

My position is, at the end of the day, there will be some sort of shell office in St. Louis. It will be a facade.

I think she's dead in the water. Prior to the case, she could have gotten anybody, Target, J.C. Penney's, Kohl's, ... I think any one of them would have wanted her (if) she replaces Kmart. But where are you going to put the product?

Most of these deals work because of cheap money. Money is getting more expensive. The potential buyers will be more cautious. They are reworking their numbers to see if they can get a return.

The advertisers are gone. It's a question of getting them back. But getting every one of them back is priced into the stock. The stock is priced as if everything she does is magical and perfect.

When it's all over, I expect holiday sales to be flat to up 1 percent, which would be the lowest reading since 1990. That's what I see for Christmas.

We had moderate growth in income but we're borrowing our brains out. The most concerning thing is that the level of savings is at less than one percent of personal income,

We're likely to see advertisers pull away ... They would much rather invest in Oprah's media publishing empire rather than associate with the Stewart brand now.

Tommy Hilfiger supplies its clothes to department stores and we all know that that's the weakest channel in retail in terms of sales,

Wal-Mart sees banking as an opportunity to give the customer a better deal. That's what Wal-Mart's about. That's why they have demolished the food and toy industries. If it's better for the customers, then that's the way it ought to be.

Wal-Mart over the last five years has been able to grow its same-store sales at 6 to 7 percent. Now that growth has dwindled to 2 or 3 percent. I call this a gigantic change.

Wal-Mart isn't about to become a fashion powerhouse. How can you sell fashion with nine aisles of dog food, detergent and chicken?

Wal-Mart is effectively redefining its future, and not before time.

Wal-Mart has identified a strategy of urban expansion, and they're not going to walk away from it, ... They know that operating in an urban market is different from the suburbs and I'm sure they were already aware of things like zoning laws. Did they really need to put up a fight in Inglewood? No. What they did here is lay down the marker. Wal-Mart is saying that they've identified a new market and they're going to move it and attack.

Wal-Mart has been losing same-store sales momentum due to store cannibalization and it's stock has been dead money for over five years compared to Target,

When a company has bad performance and new owners, look for musical chairs,

Within the retail industry Federated is known for catering to the classes and May to the masses. For the May customer, it's an opportunity to get more upscale merchandise that a Bloomingdales' customer is familiar with.

When Sears Essentials came in, you had a lot of morons running around screaming this was the greatest thing. I said it was a bowling alley with no customers. This business of going off-the-mall is much more complex than it looks.

We've had an astronomical number of store closings.

We'll have to see if these measures also will induce consumers to buy more in the second half of the year,

Those retailers who promoted like mad got the business and they won.

What happened in the third quarter is that retailers controlled inventory and expenses tremendously. So expect to see pretty good gross margins and expect to see inventories down. Put it all together and earnings will be fair.

The problem at Linens 'n Things is execution.

The private equity companies have never had this much money. They have $125 billion available for acquisitions.

Bon-Ton is one of the weakest players in a very weak sector. It is increasing its risk profile tremendously by taking on debt. How does this all hang together?

Bon-Ton has been losing market share and now it's buying more losers, who have also been losing market share,

At the end of the day, if the quotas stick, the bottom line is that consumers will be paying more for some clothing items by next year.

There's no question about it, ... There is so much publicity about obesity in America. You hear politicians talking about it daily. You even hear the president of the United States talking about it as a growing concern.

There's no way to make up for the lost business. It's gone.

The transit strike is devastating for retail. It couldn't have come at a worse time, and we don't know how long it's going to go on.

There would have been gigantic costs associated with the unbundling process given that the different units share warehouse and distribution centers,

The rule of the game is go public for the money when you have the numbers to impress potential investors. Retail, and especially apparel, is so fickle that nothing stays the same forever.

The stock has a lot of downside and very little upside.

SARS has not stopped factories from rolling out products in China, ... The only effect it's had on U.S. businesses is that it has led to fewer visits from buyers to the region. So there have been less face-to-face meetings between buyers and suppliers, but companies have gotten around that by teleconferencing.

Other holidays have become less important. Halloween is the exception. It has become more important.

The name of the game for Ben and Jerry's is to get someone to taste the product. If this promotion can get more customers in the doors, there's a reasonable chance that many of them may return later (when they charge full price).

The most important people who have to be motivated are the store employees; they're your life blood. Federated knows this.

Some retailers are already marking up 40- to 50-percent off signs as we speak.

Specialty apparel is a very fast-moving business. It's also a fickle business of fashion and creativity where the winners are those retailers who can constantly reinvent themselves and their products.

As a negotiating strategy, I would assume Saks is trying to package the whole thing -- to sell the good with the bad.

The brand as we know it is dead. Any brand that's built exclusively around a single personality can't survive something like this.

The business is getting smaller -- the advertising, the TV, the magazine -- everything is going down. This company is not going to go away tomorrow. However, the losses are getting scary.

Back-to-school has been very soft and therefore prices are coming down. The discount signs are already being made. Both Wal-Mart and Target have had anemic growth over the summer. The only sector that has done well is luxury.

You see the guy out on the street selling coffee, donuts, fruit - his business is destroyed. There are a lot of small businesses that will close or that won't be able to pay their bills next year because of the strike.

This is an era in which corporations want to be lily white because corporate governance is on the front burner.

This is specially true of the specialty stores. Retailers have to become more creative if they want to keep customers longer in their stores and if they want them to keep coming back.

This deal is a classic Wall Street creation, ... Sears' store sales are down for 22 consecutive months. The company is in a crisis. It had to find a way to pump up its stock and reward its shareholders. Wait until the smoke clears.

Also, most big retail chains placed their Christmas orders months ago and the Christmas inventory was already in the pipeline before (the) SARS (outbreak),

They had a free lunch and now they have to buy dinner.

They are a small brand. They are not a monster brand. The name of the game for them is to build brand awareness and market share.