DALLAS –Just 5 months after being named CEO of Neiman Marcus, Karen Katz, who has been with the company for 25 years, announced that she’ll need a raise or be forced to moonlight, which, she says, “Would probably cut into my CEO-ing time.”
Katz was ecstatic upon being named to the Neiman Marcus top spot, but was distraught upon learning that her $1.5M-a-year appointment still doesn’t afford her enough discretionary income to shop at the 103-year-old luxury specialty retailer.
“I’ve been waiting for a quarter century to shop here,” said Katz during a break while studying for her taxi driver’s license. “But forty-five dollars for a pair of socks?! I’m still priced out of the market. At Marshallsthey practically pay you to take their underwear.” She scratched her chin thoughtfully. “We must be marking this stuff up a lot more than finance is letting on.”
Upon discovering that she still couldn’t afford the prices at the 42-store chain over which she rules, Katz decided to grant all employees a 75% discount in lieu of the 30% savings they had received for the past 50 years. “But that didn’t help much,” stated a freshly scrubbed cosmetologist at their Dallas Northpark location. “My $23,000-a-year salary still won’t help me land a $2,100 Gucci handbag. And if I don’t get one soon, I’m fully prepared to buy a misspelled one out of that van behind KFC.”
The retailer, which has seen same store sales drop by almost thirty percent since the economy began its downward spiral 24 months ago, has decided to re-define its target market, which means Neimans will, as Katz put it, “Start slumming it.”
For instance, starting in September Neiman Marcus will begin selling turkey legs and corn dogs in their confectionery section, packaging the greasy products with $25 tins of gourmet chocolate-covered potato chips. And shoppers will now be able to get cole slaw at 15% off if they purchase a $250 box of personalized assorted chocolates.
But after a century of marketing to the top .005 percent of wage earners, Katz’s “down market strategy” has done little more than leave existing clientele confused. Said Helen Lennox, a dedicated, 82-year-old shopper since 1933, “I don’t understand why they gave me a 64-ounce box of Tide [detergent] when I bought my pool boy a $2,300 Zegna suit. I didn’t even know what Tide was when they handed it to me. Apparently it’s used to clean one’s wardrobe. I haven’t washed my own clothes since daddy played croquet with Herbert Hoover.”
But Katz remains confident she’ll eventually force Neimans’ products down to a price point her pocketbook can stomach. “We just hired over a hundred red-vested, elderly men to greet customers at the door. And once we start selling cigarettes and install the Slurpee machines, you’ll see a whole new me.”—Citizen Dick Arneson reporting
