Posted on 01/31/2024 12:06:27 PM PST by DallasBiff
Ward Melville, in collaboration with J. Franklin McElwain, a shoe manufacturer from New Hampshire, founded the Thom McAn brand. The name drew inspiration from Scottish golfer Thomas McCann. The inaugural retail store opened its doors in New York in 1922, offering a selection of uncomplicated styles at a fixed, affordable price. Within five years, the brand expanded to 300 stores, and by 1939, it had a staggering 650 stores.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanmemorylane.com ...
You are assuming that they couldn’t keep pace with style, but they couldn’t keep pace with lower wages paid to employees in other countries, and they did not want to take their company overseas.
Nice try, kid.
I see the world as it is now; and, I suspect, much clearer than you.
But I don’t get all emotional about it, simply because it is reality, and reality just IS. You may just as well yell at a hurricane, or an earthquake. But, kid; your posting history just oozes emotionalism. And, you get angry so easily. That’s not good for your health, kid. Keep it up, and you won’t live to my age; as you will either clutch the widow maker or stroke out.
Ah, the 60s? I assumed you were referring to the 1960s, because you seem hopelessly ignorant of anything that preceded that decade. In other words, your knowledge is limited — with an emphasis on LIMITED — to only what you have personally experienced. In other words, scholarship has been as illusory to you as an attempt to catch the wind; it is beyond your grasp. But, keep working on it; don’t give up!
“No you have not. I have seen nothing from you telling how our factories started being unable to compete.”
Ah, but see: You never asked that question, did you? Nope, you didn’t (at least, you didn’t ask that question of me). The only time you said anything about factories was in your post #70. You said, “Shareholders & the company are worthless to this nation, without jobs & factories.”
That’s it. And that was just a comment, not a question. The only question you posed was, “Who drove up the wages?” Well, hell; as costs increase, wages generally follow. It’s called inflation. Or, companies can decide to outsource certain elements of their business to locations where wages are more conducive to making a profit. Supply and demand, kid: It’s pretty basic. If your product could be purchased for $1,000 one year, but that very same product cost $2,000 to buy the next year, that company may be losing market share. So, to remain competitive, and still make a profit, that company would consider alternatives to their manufacturing process, or their product line entirely. That may include having certain components of the product – or even a complete product — manufactured elsewhere.
For example, our auto industry came late to that conclusion decades ago. The Big Three were fixated on building gas-guzzling muscle cars even when gasoline became more expensive. The public said it wanted more economical cars, and so Volkswagen became very popular; and, later, Honda and Datsun, etc. And the Big Three saw their market share take a hit.
Our factories started to close because it became too expensive to operate them, especially with new governmental regulations. It was more affordable for both the company and the consumer to buy foreign products, or products manufactured in whole or in part on foreign soil.
Basic economics.
It's simply a matter of obsolescence of brick and mortar shopping centers.
Also, Melville Corporation became CVS in 1996.
I don’t think I ever saw/heard that :-)
Thom McAn stores closed in 1996, however, Footstar (1996-2008) was spun off from the Melville Corporation in 1996 as part of that corporation's reorganization of all of its operating divisions including Marshalls, KB Toys, This End Up, and Linens 'n Things. After the spinoff and/or sale of all of its divisions other than CVS Pharmacy, Melville changed its name to CVS Corporation and relocated its headquarters to Woonsocket, Rhode Island. From 2008-Presnt it operated under Sears LLC apparently.
By the 1980s, Melville was still the largest footwear retailer in the US. The company had diversified to add such chains as Chess King, Foxmoor and CVS Pharmacy. It began to phase out six of its seven footwear factories in 1983, and in 1985 it closed 72 Thom McAn outlets. In 1988, it purchased the athletic shoe chain FootAction.
In 1992, Thom McAn was down to 730 outlets, and Melville announced that it would close 350. In 1996, Melville closed the remaining Thom McAn outlets, converting approximately 100 of the locations to the Footaction USA format. As Melville divested its operations to focus on CVS, the remaining footwear operations including Meldisco were spun off into a new company, Footstar.
With the closure of the retail outlets, Thom McAn shoes began appearing in Kmart stores, through the footwear departments operated by Meldisco. In 2003, Footstar began selling Thom McAn in 1,500 Walmart stores.
In 2005, Kmart owner Sears Holdings reached an agreement with Footstar – which by then was in bankruptcy and consisted almost entirely of the Meldisco-operated footwear departments inside Kmart stores – to let Footstar run the shoe departments through 2008, after which Sears would purchase the remaining inventory at book value. In April 2008, Sears Holdings agreed to obtain Footstar's intellectual property, including the Thom McAn brand name.
So, it looks like you are correct to a degree. They may have seen the writing on the wall with regards to brick & motor establishments, but the real focus had become the CVS stores as their mainstay business, which of course still required brick & mortar establishments. Thus I'm thinking that healthcare products was a more viable business as the population began to age, more than the internet aspect itself. But the internet aspect still played a part in their divesting from so much brick & mortar establishments for less performing aspects of the brick & mortar establishments. Because not only was the populating aging, the slowdown of the population growth with smaller family units, made sales of shoes less profitable. Thus better to become the supplier, and they probably did outsource those items to be created abroad with cheaper labor, with other entities operating & responsible for the brick & mortal establishments for the shoe products.
I knew of Tom McAn, but never really paid much attention when I didn't see them around much anymore. Out of sight, out of mind I guess. So, thanks for setting me on the right trail to learn more, not that I had much interest, but I had offered my two cents, and that was overevaluation on my part. 🤣
Indeed
Too funny...MY older sister worked at Bakers...do you remember that shoe store?
She then went to work in their accounting dept and worked there until she finished college.
Bakers and Thom McAn were similar competitors, in our mall.
Thom McCann
Westland Plaza in Jackson Miss
McRaes dept store
Shainbergs discount clothes
Western Auto
Jitney Jungle
First Federal bank
1960s and early 70s
Funny how u remember all that
The huge 50 acres parking lot had a Shoneys with real drive up and car hops then
The lot teemed weekend nights with cruising and cars everywhere kids
Can’t do that now
Local police state in Franklin tn the most over policed less needed place I’ve ever lived outside a civil war zone shuts em down immediately
I don’t think we had Bakers, but I was just a young kid in the 1970s.
Specifically picked you out among the many others on the thread seeing as we're both oldies but goodies! Peace!! ;)
Obama bringing fundamental change to presidential footwear I guess. Wonder what brand he went with.
Probably leBron James shoes or something
Nostalgia time for NoVa expatriates. I don’t remember that show but I do remember watching Sam & Friends on one of our local DC stations. Sam & Friends was a 15 “puppet” show by Jim Henson and his girlfriend/wife before they became famous as The Muppets.
I was in Arlington from summer 1956 to summer 1966. Parkington with its Hechts anchor was walking distance from me. McCrory’s. Giant Food. Hot Shoppes. Giffords Ice Cream. Putt-Putt. If I hadn’t moved away I’d have gone to Wakefield. Half of my classmates went to W-L. That was a great time to live there. Before the Beltway.
Up until a few years ago, there were 65 Rockport retail stores. Met the guy who owned them at the last retail store to close at a mall in the Houston area. Got two pair for $40 each; retail $135-140.
Cost to keep a store in a mall was cost prohibited; plus customers would come in to try them on and then go buy them on-line.
I’m almost 71, and I have all the shoes, pants, shorts, shirts, jackets, etc. I will ever need.
I have at least 30 pair of slacks, 40 pole shirts, 50 t-shirts etc.
I remember the man in the suit measuring my foot with a steel contraption and then pulling boxes of the most uncomfortable and ugly shoes off the racks before having me try each pair on.
My mother would have me walk up and down the store in each pair until she finally decided on the stupidest looking shoes for me to trek off to school in. Usually earth shoes.
Hot Shoppes was great. I really miss it.
In our area, we had Big Boy. I always thought their double-decker burger predated the Big Mac, too..
Tops was a local hamburger chain that only NoVa, DC expatriates will remember. There’s some history here:
https://www.historicfairfax.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/HFCI53-2007.pdf
“In our area, we had Big Boy. I always thought their double-decker burger predated the Big Mac, too..”
Your memory is correct.
Big Boy (aka Bob’s Big Boy) is/was a national chain that began in California
I was (and am) in Maryland. I loved Big Boy.
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