Macy’s announced a major restructuring Wednesday after holiday sales turned out worse than expected.
The company blamed the warm winter in the East for the bad results, saying that slow-moving cold weather goods accounted for 80% of its shortfall.
For November and December combined, same-store sales fell 4.7%. The company had planned for a 2% to 3% decline.
Macy’s said it will cut SG&A expenses by $400 million in 2016, including cutting 3,000 store-level positions, offering buyouts to 165 senior executives, closing a call center to eliminate 750 jobs, slashing 600 back office positions and consolidating the grouping of existing Macy’s stores into five regions and 47 local districts, down from the current structure of seven regions and 58 local districts.
We have also heard that a Hawaii buying office that worked with several industry brands to tailor their assortment for Hawaii is also being eliminated.
Macy’s will also close 40 of its 770 stores, including the Macy’s at Irvine Spectrum Center and in Kailua, Hawaii.Â
