2010: Survival of the Fittest

After over a decade of our shopping malls being “over-jewelered” to the point where competition was fierce and profits slim, the tables have finally turned. 

The past two years of a brutal retail environment – especially in discretionary retail, have triggered a “culling of the herd”.  So the silver lining of the economic collapse for our surviving clients is a bit less competition. 

Gone are some of the mega-chains, such as Friedman and Whitehall and Crescent.  Gone are many of the “mom and pops”.  Even one of the mega-chains, Zales, seems to be teetering on the edge. 

So the fittest, our Survivors are still there, and feeling a bit less “brick and mortar” competition.  That’s giving them more time to deal with the other strategic issues like Gold prices, and Internet competition. 

 Tell me what you think.  Are you glowing in the silver lining?  Is it giving you some space to deal with other strategic issues?  Are you a survivor because of a strong balance sheet, or from “staying the course”, or something else?

This entry was posted on Monday, January 25, 2010 at 12:41 pm and is filed under CEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.