It is walking away from just about every “white” and “silver” retailer—and a few “gold”
Pandora has cut 450 more U.S. more retailers from its network, as well as 130 in Canada.
This culling includes just about every remaining “white”- and “silver”-level retailer, except for those who plan to upgrade to the “gold” or “shop in shop” status.
The company will also be “walking away from a small number of gold dealers,” says Laurie McDonald, general manager, Pandora USA.
“For us, upgrading is not just a matter of putting the fixtures in the stores,” says McDonald. “There also has to be marketing, there also has to be training of the staff, they have to have the product in the store. Those are the key elements to the customer experience.”
McDonald doesn’t think losing so many doors will hurt the brand.
“These stores that we are closing make up a tiny percentage of our business,” she says. “Even though it is a lot of doors, they are not doing a lot of Pandora business.”
After these changes are made, the company doesn’t plan any major changes to its store lineup, she says.
“The network is always evolving,” she says. “You always want to look at it. I don’t foresee this happening again at this size.”
McDonald adds the company is committed to multi-brand retailers: “We don’t see ourselves exiting the multi-brand piece of our business. It is very important. It represents half our business.”
She admits that many of the accounts that are being closed feel they played a role in the brand’s success.
“Anytime we have closed an account, people will say that we have built the brand,” she says. “We are grateful to each and every one of these dealers. All of them have played a part in Pandora’s growth. But we have to continue to grow and evolve, and we need to reinvent. If they are not willing to do that, it is no longer a good match. We are thankful to them and grateful for what they have done, but at some point it doesn’t work to getting us both to our objectives anymore.”
Among the retailers Pandora is ending its relationship with is department store Von Maur. The company stopped selling to Nordstrom earlier this year.
Follow JCK on Instagram: @jckmagazine
Follow JCK on Twitter: @jckmagazine
Follow JCK on Facebook: @jckmagazine
