Monkey Wards
terryoregon
three cities I've lived in since the sixties - Las Cruces New Mexico,
Lubbock Texas And Portland Oregon.
(1) Monkey Wards service was always mediocre. Finding good help in one of
their stores was a rarity.
(2) Seems like most of their stores were in older buildings, They didn't
usually relocate to the high traffic malls like Penny's and Sears.
(3) Never saw really good discounts or prices.
Beyond that, there just wasn't anything that pulled me into their stores.
Perhaps someone who is over sixty can tell us about Monkey Wards in their
glory days. They obviously had something going for them at one time to get
as big as they are.
Article about Monkeys Wards:
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61151-2000Dec28.html
Gene Warner
several previous MW catalogs in there. Read a few pages, rip them out, wipe.
Wonder what they will use now?
In article <92jkr...@enews1.newsguy.com>, terryore...@THISyahoo.com
says...
nos...@kiski.net
Fired all the people, changed the stores to garbage and screwed a lot
of people.
This death was 20 years over due.
Fred Winterer
[Snip]
>Well. I'm not 60 but 44 and MW used to be comparable to Sears and JC
>Penney, more so to JCP. They were like sears in that they sold major
>brand appliances under their own name, but were made by the major
>companies, just like Sears. They were a store like Sears and JC Penny
>where you could buy just about anything.
>
>Problem is, the world has changed over the last 30 years, MW didn't. JCP
>hasn't changed much, and I suspect they will be next, followed by Sears.
>Too bad really, these were stores where you could actually get someone to
>help you. Now, they will be replaced with big box stores where the prices
>are always good but service is non existent, irritating usually actually!
So true about the world changing. MW began operating in Chicago in the 1870s
as mail-order outlet, eventually building a store in Chicago. They were quite
successful (even surviving the depression by being conservative and hoarding
cash) until the 1950s when the suburban explosion occurred. While the other
mass merchandisers saw the opportunity, MW didn't and, unfortunately, remained
conservative. By the time they saw the light it was too late... the others had
established their foothold in the suburbs and MW never caught up. The real
downfall started in the early 70s when they were bought by, believe it or not,
Mobil Oil. It was a huge downhill slide after that.
Harv Laser
terryoregon <terryore...@THISyahoo.com> wrote in message
news:92jkr...@enews1.newsguy.com...
> Will soon be history. Here are my thoughts about Monkey Wards, based on
> three cities I've lived in since the sixties - Las Cruces New Mexico,
> Lubbock Texas And Portland Oregon.
>
> (1) Monkey Wards service was always mediocre. Finding good help in one
of
> their stores was a rarity.
Relative wanted a Revereware copper-bottom, covered saucepan. Revereware
has been made and sold in department stores for like, well.. forever.
Looked up their retailers on their Web Site, Wards was listed as one of the
chains that carried it.
Drove to the local Wards, find the kitchen department, look all around,
over, under all the various cookware.. don't see any Revereware. Find a
girl working that department, arranging a display and ask her where it is.
She'd not only never heard of Revereware but told me, after asking a senior
employee (meaning someone in their late 20s..).. "We don't carry any."
> (2) Seems like most of their stores were in older buildings, They didn't
> usually relocate to the high traffic malls like Penny's and Sears.
This Wards was an "anchor" store at the Del Amo Fashion Square Mall in
Torrance, CA. One of the biggest single malls in the USA. About 350
stores. The same mall is anchored at the other end by a Sears and a
Pennys about in the middle. There's also a Robinsons.. or wait, did they
shut down too? There used to be an I. Magnin and Bullocks.. I think those
are both shut down or turned into something else. Those were both high-end
Department Stores catering to the snooty class.
> (3) Never saw really good discounts or prices.
Well, I got a 100% discount from them - didn't cost me a cent. Of course,
they actually have to
stock what a manufacturer SAYS they stock for you to actually buy
something..
It'll be interesting to see what goes into that Wards space when they shut
it down and scrape the place clean. About halfway on the other side of
the mall is a former Broadway store, another decades-old chain of
middle-scale Department Stores that went out of business years and years
ago, and to this day is still closed with no new tenant. I think the Mall
was built sometime in the 1960s.
Harv
Steven Greenfield
[snip..]
> About halfway on the other side of
> the mall is a former Broadway store, another decades-old chain of
> middle-scale Department Stores that went out of business years and years
> ago, and to this day is still closed with no new tenant.
Broadway?? Now why does that name sound familiar? Wasn't that part
of the "Emporium-Capwell" (by any other name) chain? Bought out by
Macy's in the early 90's and shut down right after the buy-out was
made official? As I recall, Macy's purchased E-C because E-C had
massive debt, minimum growth, and continuing labor problems (until
people realized that their jobs were in jeopardy.) There's another
case-study of how to fail a business.
Steve G.
Warren
I live here in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. Your comments about
Montgomery Wards are pretty much on the mark. With one exception, in my
experiences with Montgomery Wards Automotive Express for the last 15 years,
I thought their service and merchandise offerings were above average.
Anyway, Montgomery Wards is the first of the retail giants to be slayed by the
likes
of the bargain retail chains, in particular, the Wal-Mart/Sams' conglomerate.
Could Sears be next?
Regards,
-Warren-
Greg
Mall downtown (180 stores, 4 anchor stores). So in that case, they *are*
closing in a high traffic area. It was still somewhat popular up there too,
falling into place as a store that's "better than Walmart, but not as good
as JC Penny", to the locals.
I remember when that mall opened up 19 years ago, it was a big deal for a
city of 55,000 to get so many stores in one location, and MW was nice then.
I moved a year later to Atlanta, so haven't spent much time back home since
then; my mother tells me however, that other than service becoming poor, the
store there remains ok. Too bad, that's lots of jobs to be lost.
GH
"terryoregon" <terryore...@THISyahoo.com> wrote in message
news:92jkr...@enews1.newsguy.com...
Slushfactory.com
>Drove to the local Wards, find the kitchen department, look all around,
>over, under all the various cookware.. don't see any Revereware.
Jesus, how irrelevant can you get? You're condemning an entire company based
on the experiences of one salesgirl? Not only is that experience not
applicable, but who the hell cares?
>There's also a Robinsons.. or wait, did they
>shut down too?
Um, no, Robinsons is still around.
>Well, I got a 100% discount from them - didn't cost me a cent.
Here you go again, basing a singular experience and making it sound like the
company as a whole. Can you not do this?
-Brian
Slushfactory.com
>Anyway, Montgomery Wards is the first of the retail giants to be slayed by
>the
>likes
>of the bargain retail chains, in particular, the Wal-Mart/Sams' conglomerate.
>Could Sears be next?
Well, you're wrong, it certainly isn't the first. I can name quite a few other
large retail chains including Best Department Stores and Woolworths. I can
name a million other large regional department stores that were also killed by
"Category Killers," the name for stores such as Best Buy and Wal-Mart.
Sears won't be next, at least not in the forseeable future. They are
profitable, which is more than I can say for Wards. The latter was a somewhat
unique case of a company which had been slowly dying for about two decades.
Sears is not in that position and is relatively heathy. I know, I used to work
there.
-Brian
Harv Laser
Slushfactory.com <viper...@aol.comakazi> wrote in message
news:20010101104805...@ng-ch1.aol.com...
> Jesus, how irrelevant can you get? You're condemning an entire company
based
> on the experiences of one salesgirl? Not only is that experience not
> applicable, but who the hell cares?
Hey, Einstein.. if you bothered to read what I wrote, you'll see I said the
salesgirl turned to ask the department manager..
Harv
Bill Rubin
I assume it never occurred to you that the manufacturer's web
site might be wrong, or at least have outdated information. I
could see your complaining if you spoke to the manager and they
said they'd never heard of it and then found it on a shelf, but
maybe they just didn't carry it anymore (or maybe not at all
stores). Revereware is not very popular anymore.. I can't
remember the last time I saw it in a store. Calphalon and the
like are what's popular these days.
Bill
Harv Laser
Bill Rubin <bill...@prodigy.net> wrote in message
news:3A5136FA...@prodigy.net...
>
> I assume it never occurred to you that the manufacturer's web
> site might be wrong, or at least have outdated information. I
> could see your complaining if you spoke to the manager and they
> said they'd never heard of it and then found it on a shelf, but
> maybe they just didn't carry it anymore (or maybe not at all
> stores). Revereware is not very popular anymore.. I can't
> remember the last time I saw it in a store. Calphalon and the
> like are what's popular these days.
>
> Bill
A Target Store across the street from the Wards carried the full line of
Revereware. They are on Reverware's Web Site as one of the retail chains
that carries it, along with Wards and some others.
So they got my money.
Harv
Stanley Cline
>In Charleston, WV., Montgomery Wards is an anchor store at the Town Center
>Mall downtown (180 stores, 4 anchor stores). So in that case, they *are*
I was at a mall up in Pennsylvania back in '99 (Harrisburg/Camp Hill
area) and Wards was an anchor in the mall. I went in; it reminded me
a lot of the way Sears was a few years ago, which is to say "so-so".
The store was fairly empty, too (this was during the hot season.)
How I categorize stores, from "least upscale" to "most upscale":
("discount" stores)
* Kmart (slipping further downhill, IMO -- I've been to Kmart only
twice in about four years)
* Wal*Mart
* Meijer (Midwest regional)
* Target (clearly targeting [no pun intended] a more upscale crowd
than the others IMO)
("department" stores)
* Sears and Wards about tie -- Sears gets some brownie points for
Kenmore and Craftsman, and loses some for relatively poor clothing
selection (IMO -- but then again Old Navy gets lots of my $$$ :) so
who am I to say?)
* Kohl's (been in only one -- in Knoxville, TN. In Chattanooga,
they're building one next door to a Target. Kohl's is supposed to
come to Atlanta, perhaps filling some former Uptons locations, but I
don't know when they'll actually arrive.)
* JCPenney (which I like -- I would *HATE* to see JCP go)
* Dillard's (which I do NOT like -- IMO they have an attitude problem)
* Traditional dept. stores (Rich's/Macy*s/Proffitt's/etc.)
* Upscale dept. stores (Lord & Taylor, Saks, Neiman-Marcus, etc.)
>I moved a year later to Atlanta, so haven't spent much time back home since
FWIW, the closest Wards to Atlanta appears to be at Peachtree Mall in
Columbus, GA. I've never been in that store, just driven by it (more
than once.)
-SC
--
Stanley Cline -- sc1 at roamer1 dot org -- http://www.roamer1.org/
...
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