Carol Spieckerman

Mervyn's: Death of California's Retail Chain

Great recap of a retail tragedy! Dayton Hudson/Target put Mervyns on a banana peel quite a while back through its benign neglect and Cerberus' subsequent and not-so-benign actions put a nail in the coffin. Had they not, I truly believe that a more focused Mervyns could have thwarted Kohl's growth considerably, stolen some of J.C. Penney's thunder and...perhaps hastened the demise of Dillard's that many believe is now in progress. The new wisdom is that more than two players in a space is overkill(!); however, the "big middle" softlines space that Mervyns occupied had, and still has, quite a bit of room as Walmart dominates the lower end and mid-tier players such as Kohl's and Penney's push upward. Target emerges as the true mid-tier player...Mervyns could have been a contender.