Olivier Bron likes a challenge. That’s what led him to his job as CEO of Bloomingdale’s in 2023, after spending years leading retailers abroad, first at Galeries Lafayette in Paris, then at Central Group in Bangkok. He was drawn to the US market, but couldn’t understand why it lagged so far behind international players when it came to its department stores — once the crown jewels of American retail.
“When I came here, I was very surprised. I visited hundreds of department stores, and none of the best department stores in the world were actually located in the US,” says Bron, speaking from his office at Bloomingdale’s HQ in Long Island City, New York. “So I saw that as a fantastic opportunity for Bloomingdale’s.”
The stores here had their strengths, Bron concedes — digital retailing and planning capabilities, for instance.
“But when it came to the customer experience, I was astonished.” His best explanations for this are pressure from shareholders to prioritize immediate returns over long-term investments, and years of obsession with digital that came at the expense of physical retail. “I was surprised to see how transactional the relationship was with the customer here in the US,” says Bron.
The customer is obsessed with discounts, with product
“The customer is obsessed with discounts, with product. But you’re losing all the rest.”
Bron clocked something brewing in the US retail industry for years: department stores had lost their magic. The wholesale model in the US — over-retailed yet under-reto the bottom turned assortments across different stores into near copies, and many customers began shopping elsewhere
Independent designers, once a discovery engine, were being squeezed, while the biggest brands put more investment into their own stores, creating a dichotomy in experiences that Bron felt was palpable. “When the customer is [shopping at] a Bottega Veneta boutique, for example, and then they see just a pile of bags in the department store, they don’t understand. They want to experience that nice environment with great service and all the storytelling,” Bron says.
“And this is exactly what we’ve been investing in.”
Bron set out putting together a plan to restore Bloomingdale’s, which is owned by Macy’s Inc., by renovating its stores — starting with its flagship on 59th Street in Manhattan — investing in the customer service experience, building up its marketing and events muscle, and bringing more brands on board. But his approach is from a position of deftness and strength, not desperation.
We’re not begging brands to join Bloomingdale’s
“We’re not begging brands to join Bloomingdale’s. We’re building an ecosystem for them to be successful,” he says. “That totally changed the perception of Bloomingdale’s, and this is the way we need to think as department stores. It’s about asking, ‘What is the relevancy of the department store model for the brand? Why would they come?’ And if you’re treating them poorly, or if you have a strategy that is structurally misaligned with their own strategy, you’re creating a gap.
And this is the same for the customer.”
Bron set his bar at international retail standards, not Bloomingdale’s American peers. And he says that this strategy was well underway when industry tides shifted in the store’s favor. In January, Saks Global, the group that owned Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, and Bergdorf Goodman, filed for bankruptcy, destabilizing three of Bloomingdale’s top competitors.
The group has since re-emerged and is up and running under the name Exemplar Luxury Group, but the financial spiral of Saks Global cleared a path for Bloomingdale’s. Since last year, the company has brought brands including Phoebe Philo, Khaite, Dries Van Noten, Thom Browne, and more into its assortment, adding 100 new names this spring alone; built a two-floor Chanel shop-in-shop at 59th Street just in time for Blazymania; partnered with international brands like Burberry on exclusive capsules; and created bigger, more frequent seasonal campaigns that include in-store activations, VIC events, cross-category tie-ups, and more.
The next campaign, Hotel Bloomingdale’s, will be unveiled
The next campaign, Hotel Bloomingdale’s, will be unveiled on September 3, leaning into the intersection of fashion and hospitality. Full-price sales are a priority, and as of 2025, Bron has cut discounting rates by a quarter since 2019. Macy’s Inc. reported in June that Q1 sales at Bloomingdale’s were up 10.2% year-on-year, marking its seventh straight quarter of growth. Now, with Exemplar making a bid for a comeback under CEO Geoffroy van Raemdonck (and fellow competitor Nordstrom having relieved investor pressures by going private), Bron’s job is to maintain that momentum without taking his eye off the ball.
He’s convinced the department store has a place in America’s retail future. “I’m hearing too much that the department store is an old model, it’s a dying model,” he says. “I mean, I have a word coming to mind about that. But what I’ll say is, no, that’s not true. That’s absolutely not true.”
Brand alchemy
Department stores today must find the right balance of luxury mainstays, new discoveries, premium price points, accessible options, trends, and timeless pieces to curate a mix that keeps customers coming back, while preventing exposure to broader shifts and setbacks in the industry.
Playing it too safe has proven misguided. “I think what’s changed for us is we’ve been trying a lot of new things, and understanding the customer is looking to be more adventurous than we gave them credit for at certain points. Introducing them to something new and taking a little bit more risk is what has been rewarding for myself and the merchant team — just seeing how the customer is willing to try something completely different,” says Bloomingdale’s chief merchant Denise Magid.
A healthy mix of high and low has
A healthy mix of high and low has also helped the store stay ahead during years of a luxury slowdown, giving contemporary brands like Toteme and Cinq à Sept a boost. “We know that luxury is always going through cycles,” says Bron. “We’re very happy to have this contemporary base that is also helping to compensate for these lows, particularly of the luxury market. So when the luxury brands gave up on these entry price points, we didn’t lose the customers.
They just shifted to contemporary. It’s a very strong platform for Bloomingdale’s. We are a very balanced model between luxury and contemporary, because we think this is the way the customer is shopping.”
Bron also sees this mix as a competitive advantage for the customer who may be intimidated by the appointment-style shopping of high-end luxury boutiques, as well as the customer who’s uninterested in the single, head-to-toe brand look.
Magid says that many Bloomingdale’s customers make their first luxury purchase at the store. “We want everybody to be able to find something,” she says. “We’re not intimidating, we’re very welcoming. It’s about the balance.”
Emerging brands are also essential to the right brand mix, even if they need time to grow into the store environment. “Sometimes, a brand is in its infancy and it may not grow for a while, but when we see a spark, we see something interesting about the brand, and we want them to be successful,” says Magid.
Bron sees nurturing budding designers as a responsibility
Bron sees nurturing budding designers as a responsibility of Bloomingdale’s because of its scale. “We hear that some others are cutting some of the small brands — I don’t want to point out anyone, we all face our own challenges. But we’re taking exactly the other direction,” he says. “This is part of the DNA of the department store. I consider it our duty to incubate these small brands, giving them visibility, giving them access to customers to test the market.
And it’s good for our customers, because they might be surprised, interested, inspired by what we’re proposing. If you only carry the blockbuster brands, more or less we’re all carrying the same product.”
Being loud
Getting people into stores is as important — if not more — than putting together the right product. If you stuff a store floor with dozens of amazing emerging brands, but no one’s walking by, does it matter?
Bloomingdale’s answer to this started with a redesign for the store layout. The fourth floor at 59th Street, where women’s luxury is stocked, has been under renovation and will reopen this fall with more points of visibility for more racks, so brands aren’t relegated to hard-to-reach corners. Then, there are the events. Hotel Bloomingdale’s, for example, will see a running calendar of in-store events, brand activations, and VIC moments to make sure there’s always something new going on in-store.
Other past VIC events from the last year
Other past VIC events from the last year include a Chloé dinner at Casa Cruz to celebrate the brand’s new shop-in-shop opening at 59th street, a Burberry shopping and lunch event at Topping Rose House, and a Piaget dinner and cocktails at the Staglin Family Vineyard in Sonoma. The next phase is to make sure Bron’s Dream Big strategy is palpable across all of Bloomingdale’s 35 stores, not just the New York flagship.
He says investment in local retail staff is the best way to avoid a decline in service, making the department store the luxury destination in whatever market it’s in. And he says the company doesn’t plan on opening any additional outposts in the near term while it renovates the ones it has. “The best way to invest in our brand is by investing in our stores. And when you think about your best memory about Bloomingdale’s, I’m highly doubting that it would be about a box coming to your door from an online order,” Bron says.
“It’s going to be from a day that you came to the store, the store looked great, you found a great product with a great sales associate that actually exactly fit your needs.”
What comes through while talking to Bron is that his strategy centers around regaining some control for the department store in an era where big brands have dominated. He’s selling Bloomingdale’s on its strengths, and what it can do for the brand.
Concession sales sit at 20%; he’s adamant
Concession sales sit at 20%; he’s adamant that the store’s luxury customers are loyal to Bloomingdale’s, and that its brand won’t be swallowed up by its vendors. “We are very, very clear. The customers are Bloomingdale’s customers. The environment is a Bloomingdale’s environment. Yes, we have to do better, we have to elevate. But I think the starting point of all of this is to be very strong on who you are.
Have very strong convictions about what defined the DNA and the purpose of Bloomingdale’s on that market,” Bron says. Bron wanted a challenge when he started at Bloomingdale’s. How does he feel about the outlook now? “I really believe that we’re doing the right thing. And yeah, our competitors are probably a little bit unfocused right now,” he says. “For us, we have nothing to do other than serve our customers, support our brands and focus on executing our strategy.
It’s a great privilege in the current context to have that focus. We have amazing teams. We have probably one of the best financial situations in the department store world right now. We have an amazing balance sheet, a great cash situation. So we’re ready to invest. And we’re clear on what we have to do.”
Source: www.vogue.com
