An Overview Of Macy's Private Brand Strategy With SVP Emily Erusha-Hilleque

Ann Mazinga: 00:00:00

Hello, everybody.

Ann Mazinga: 00:00:01

This is omitalk retail.

Ann Mazinga: 00:00:02

I'm Ann Mazinga.

Chris Walton: 00:00:03

And I'm Chris Walton.

Ann Mazinga: 00:00:04

more time from Shop Talk fall: 2024

Ann Mazinga: 00:00:08

And before we get into our next guest, we want to just give a quick thank you to our partners, making all of our coverage possible here.

Ann Mazinga: 00:00:15

First of all, Microsoft, whose mission is to empower every person in every organization to achieve more.

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You can learn more about how together tech and people can realize the promise of AI, respectively, responsibly at aka Ms Al a T Microsoft and Narvar as a leader in post purchase intelligence, Narvar empowers retailers to drive revenue, reduce costs and streamline operations, all while delivering exceptional customer experiences.

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You can check them out right below us here at booth l 45 today or visit them@narvar.com dot now, joining us today, Chris, is someone, yes.

Ann Mazinga: 00:00:52

That I am so excited to interview.

Ann Mazinga: 00:00:54

Fresh off the stage.

Ann Mazinga: 00:00:56

Fresh off the stage.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:00:57

Fresh.

Chris Walton: 00:00:57

You just got done, right?

Ann Mazinga: 00:00:58

Yes, we have Emily Urusha Hilliku, the senior vice president of private brands at Macy's.

Ann Mazinga: 00:01:04

Welcome to Omnitalk, Emily.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:01:05

Thank you, Anne.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:01:06

Thank you, Chris.

Ann Mazinga: 00:01:06

Thank you.

Chris Walton: 00:01:07

It's so great to have you, another former colleague of ours here today with us.

Chris Walton: 00:01:10

All right, so let's start off your role.

Chris Walton: 00:01:12

Yes, it's pretty new, right?

Chris Walton: 00:01:14

And so what is it and how's it work?

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:01:17

So it's about two and a half years old.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:01:19

So I'm the senior vice president of private brands for Macy's, which includes all of design for private brands, Olive trend research and forecasting, our brand management and innovation team, our textile and art team.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:01:32

And so we build products across 25 brands at Macy's.

Ann Mazinga: 00:01:37

And just that.

Ann Mazinga: 00:01:38

Yes, just that.

Ann Mazinga: 00:01:41

25 brands.

Ann Mazinga: 00:01:42

I mean, that in itself is revolutionizing the fashion business at Macy's.

Ann Mazinga: 00:01:47

But tell us a little bit about how that kind of fits into some of the other brands under the Macy's umbrella and what kind of distinguishes the Macy's brands.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:01:56

Sure.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:01:56

So part of our strategy as an organization that we've been working through from a transformational standpoint over the last year is what we're calling a bold new chapter.

Ann Mazinga: 00:02:07

Okay.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:02:07

A bold new chapter in Macy's.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:02:08

And when you think about, you know, chapters, chapters in a book, we're kind of in that first chapter.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:02:12

And one of the biggest things that we've been strategizing against and solving for is the changing needs of the current consumer, while also the consumer that we're trying to attract.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:02:23

And part of that is developing a portfolio of brands, not only in the national brand space, but also perfectly complemented by ownable private brands to be able to realize our fullest potential from an assortment and a content standpoint.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:02:38

And the customers have told us they love us for quality, they love us for value.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:02:43

We can do better in experience, we can do better in assortment as it relates to building relevant brands for our consumer, reducing redundancy in the assortments and really establishing ourselves as that fashion leader again in the space.

Chris Walton: 00:02:57

So I'm curious because, you know, we're omnitalk and we're at a technology conference, how do you think about the digital side of this, like, particularly the endless aisle as you look?

Chris Walton: 00:03:06

I mean, you just mentioned national brands.

Chris Walton: 00:03:08

You've got exclusive brands, you've got private label brands.

Chris Walton: 00:03:10

Then endless aisle in a marketplace, like, how do you think about all that and bringing it to life as well for the consumer?

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:03:16

I think what Macy's is doing a really great job of is we are integrating not only our private brand fleet with our national brand fleet with our marketplace partners.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:03:25

And Josh Danos, who, you know, runs marketplace for, for Macy's is doing an incredible job in partnership with our merchants and integrating into one holistic strategy.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:03:35

So yes, the endless aisle is a very real thing, but Macy's is taking a very surgical and strategic approach to ensuring, similar to what we do in private brands, that marketplace is there to fill white space in categories that we currently don't carry within our national or our own brand space, opportunities out there that we want to maximize on.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:03:54

And again, giving the customer and meeting them where they are and what they need at Macy's.

Chris Walton: 00:03:59

And Emily, I'm curious too, is the strategy from your standpoint too, on the digital side, just for the private brands?

Chris Walton: 00:04:03

Do you extend the assortment into the digital sphere as well?

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:04:06

You do, yes.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:04:07

So typically we'll do kind of layer ups for digital, or we'll take a small portion of the business and extend a, expand it out for a digital consumer.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:04:16

And it's very interesting, you know, depending on the brand that you're talking about, you know, you may have a brand in store that's a number ten brand, but it's a number one digitally.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:04:23

And so, you know, we have to be very strategic about how we sort against those two channels while still maintaining a very seamless brand experience no matter where the customer wants to engage.

Ann Mazinga: 00:04:36

Right.

Ann Mazinga: 00:04:36

Well, let's talk about some of those new brands.

Ann Mazinga: 00:04:38

Emily, on 34th, we saw you in the airport and you had the best sandals on and you're like, you got to check out on 34th, which is one of the new private label brands.

Ann Mazinga: 00:04:48

You just announced a new men's brand.

Ann Mazinga: 00:04:50

Tell the audience at home kind of what we can expect, especially as we head into holiday, too.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:04:55

That's great.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:04:55

Well, yes, I was wearing a pair of on 34th silver bow slides.

Ann Mazinga: 00:05:00

Yes.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:05:01

And like we talk about on our team, you know, having pride in your work, you know, half of that is showcasing it by wearing it.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:05:07

Yes, I'm wearing shameless plug cashmere from Charter Club, one of our private brands.

Ann Mazinga: 00:05:13

Oh, my God.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:05:13

With Donna Karen, one of our national brands.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:05:15

Yeah, that combo is, like, working for me today, so.

Ann Mazinga: 00:05:18

Yes, yes, very much.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:05:19

Yes.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:05:20

But I think one of the things that we're most proud about in the private brand space is what we've been able to do as it relates to launching new brands.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:05:27

And our first new brand that we launched on 34th in the ready to wear space, you know, really targeting what we're calling the prime time consumers so that 40 to 60 year old that we know is in the store, they're engaging with us in beauty, they're engaging with us in fragrance and other national brands.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:05:43

And the goal was to parlay them into the private brand space as well as fill white space from an aesthetic standpoint that we had in the market in terms of the modern, classic consumer with kind of that twist of contemporary and meeting her where she was.

Ann Mazinga: 00:05:57

Yeah.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:05:57

So that brand is now about 15 months old, doing extremely well in our top ten ready to wear brands already.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:06:04

Just after a year, which is really positive, tangentially.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:06:07

Then, you know, several months later, we launched state of day, which is also targeted against that 40 to 60 year old consumer.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:06:14

But that's in the intimate apparel, in the sleepwear space, we like to call, you know, the brand harkening on this idea of rest wear.

Ann Mazinga: 00:06:21

Yeah.

Chris Walton: 00:06:22

So this wear, that's a new term.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:06:24

I know.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:06:25

So something that you can feel comfortable wearing, you know, around the house with your kids and their friends around, you can walk the dog in it, you can walk outside and grab the mail, but you can also easily sleep with it.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:06:35

So that brand is off to an amazing start.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:06:37

And then over the last month, we've launched our new branded men's motive one.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:06:41

So men's contemporary brand targeted at that age, like 30 to 50.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:06:46

Off to an amazing start.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:06:48

And we leveraged a lot of external ambassadors too, to help us.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:06:51

Yeah, kind of paved the way for the brand.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:06:53

So really, really proud.

Chris Walton: 00:06:54

So I'm guessing rest wear is kind of an upgrade from the pajama bottoms that I see my neighbor wearing while he's walking his dog.

Chris Walton: 00:07:00

Is that the general idea here?

Ann Mazinga: 00:07:01

He's nothing.

Chris Walton: 00:07:04

Well intended and much needed.

Chris Walton: 00:07:06

100%.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:07:07

We'll send them to Macy's products, right?

Chris Walton: 00:07:09

Yes, yes, yes.

Chris Walton: 00:07:10

Might be me, too.

Chris Walton: 00:07:11

But anyway, all right, let's get you out of here on this.

Chris Walton: 00:07:13

So, you know, knowing retail and merchandising as we do, holiday has been put to bed.

Chris Walton: 00:07:18

At this point.

Chris Walton: 00:07:18

From your standpoint, what are you excited about in terms of holiday?

Chris Walton: 00:07:21

And then as you look forward to spring, because I know you're already working on that.

Chris Walton: 00:07:24

If that's not also put to bed, what are you looking forward to for spring?

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:07:27

Well, we're really excited about our holiday assortment at Macy's.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:07:30

You know, we've got one of our 1st 50 stores, which is one of our incubation stores, stores in Jersey City where we set up prototype for holiday a couple of months before it hits, you know, the rest of the country.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:07:41

And I just walked the store a couple of weeks ago with the leadership team as well as my team.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:07:46

I'm really excited about gifting and sleepwear.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:07:48

I'm really excited about some of our new fashion elements that we've layered into ready to wear.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:07:52

Cashmere looks better than it ever has looked.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:07:55

So love it.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:07:56

Check it out.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:07:57

We've got new colors, we've got new fits, we've got new shapes and cashmere.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:08:01

We've done a ton of really amazing things in the beauty and fragrance space, in the jewelry space, you'll see charms, you'll see new boxed goods.

Ann Mazinga: 00:08:08

All right.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:08:09

And then check out Holiday lane for your holiday.

Chris Walton: 00:08:11

Holiday lane?

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:08:12

Yes.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:08:12

For your holiday trim.

Emily Urusha Hilliku: 00:08:14

If you're pre planning your tree, we put a lot of really amazing pieces in there that are good for gifts or just to decorate your home.

Ann Mazinga: 00:08:20

Oh, my gosh.

Ann Mazinga: 00:08:20

So great.

Ann Mazinga: 00:08:21

Well, thank you so much, Emily, for taking the time to stop by.

Ann Mazinga: 00:08:25

We know that you have a lot to see and do here while we're at shop talk fall.

Ann Mazinga: 00:08:29

Thank you again, so much to Microsoft and Narvar for making all of our coverage possible.

Ann Mazinga: 00:08:34

Go check out those Macy's new private brands.

Ann Mazinga: 00:08:37

And until our next interview, be careful out there.