S03.E11: Blues Jean Bar

[Tara Ariano]

A denim retailer with stores all over the U.S. suffers from poor management and may have expanded too rapidly.

[Primetimer]

A denim bar gets real about Lemonis's dupa, and other key moments from The Profit.

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[Ketzel]

Hey, The Blues Jean Bar! I went to the one in Boston once around four years ago! I was surprised to hear the owner tell Marcus her customer focus included women in their forties, because the vibe at the Newbury Street store was decidedly not friendly to older customers. My recollection is that the stock sizes definitely leaned towards the young, thin and trendy. The prices were very high, even for the location and they oddly only stocked 34 inch inseams. If you needed shorter jeans, they sent them out to a tailor and charged you for the alteration, unlike several of the department stores around, which include the alteration if you are buying full price jeans. The big draw was supposed to be that the sales staff were expert fitters, and they carried brands that were not as mainstream but which could fit a wider range of body types. I couldn't really judge from my one visit, but others I knew who shopped there said the expertise was very dependent on which sales person you got.

 

If Marcus and Lady would really play up that aspect of the service, they could distinguish Denim & Soul from other boutiques, but I didn't see anything that suggested they understood that. 

Edited November 11, 2015 by Ketzel

[Gregg247]

I love how Marcus takes complex (to me, at least) concepts and makes them sound so sensible and understandable.  That whole "profit margins for jeans vs. profit margins for other stuff" made a lot of sense.

 

However, I disagreed with him completely on the store's concept.  I liked the bar and the wood floors Lady had based her concept around.  It looked like an old-time saloon, and seemed like a cool and interesting place to buy jeans.  I guess Marcus wanted to focus in on the 25-40 year old female market exclusively.  As a guy, I would have shopped in the old bar concept store.  I would walk right past the Denim&Soul store without a second glance.  

 

Were they still selling men's jeans after the re-do?  They never said, but if so, I think they won't sell nearly as many as they did before.

[attica]

Were they still selling men's jeans after the re-do?

 

There was footage of a dude getting assistance from Tasha, so I guess so?

[FastLou]

I sincerely hope the sob stories are not a growing trend. Virtually all these type show seem to go further and further down that road as they age. For me at least, the personal story is not in the top 10 reasons I watch a show like this.

[caligirl50]

I kind of agree. I didn't like the store's new lighting, I didn't understand some of the new products introduced but I am not a jean wearer so I guess I should shut up.

[BusyOctober]

I know there's a lot of filming we don't get to see, so there was obviously some reason Marcus went for a deal with Lady. If I were a business person looking to invest, I would have had red flags flying if I heard my potential partner telling me repeatedly "I didn't understand the market/ customer in location X. Or Y. Or Z."

In the end the place looked like every other upscale boutique. It was cleaner and less of a shit show, but nothing that doesn't already exist. Tchotchkes and high-end beauty products mixed in with limited label recognition clothing has been around in cities for decades. There are tons of them all over the trendy neighborhoods near me in Boston. I see them when I travel to Chicago, Austin, Charleston, Annapolis, Aspen...these places are cool to browse, but I don't see them as becoming a national brand. But, then again, I'm not a size 00, 5'11" 25 year old with disposable time and money roaming the streets looking for jeans, a twee cowboy hat and a beach cruiser bicycle in one convenient location.

Add me to the list of no more sob stories. If I want to watch people with bad business sense beg for cash while crying about poor dead relatives I can turn on Shark Tank.

[KHenry14]

Lady's business acumen is  complete zero. How in the world do you expand without having an understanding of the market you are entering? And frankly, I just don't understand what Lady brings to the company other than high concept? She doesn't know how to run a business obviously, and she has seemingly little interest in managing the day to day workings of her stores. So why exactly is she around?

[Amarsir]

I feel like the difference between "high margin add-ons" and "clutter that distracts from your core purpose" is a subtle one that depends heavily on who is speaking. If they have sufficient inventory to serve customers and still have space left over, then there's no problem with shirts and bikes and "I'm 100% In Charge" pillows.  But I could easily picture an alternate universe version taking place after this makeover. Evil Marcus walks in and strokes his goatee while saying "Where are all your jeans for 45 year olds?  Why do you have all this junk that takes up space when people come here for denim?"

[mojito]

One of my least favorite episodes. Just wasn't interested in the product or the plan. I don't mind spending a lousy couple minutes with the sob story; it's good to see the motivation and passion that people have in their businesses. In this case, though, I only saw a passion for success but not much of a plan. 

[Corgi-ears]

"It's not that complicated. Whether this is Cleveland, or the most fascinating city in America. It's jeans."

Sick burn on the Cleve, Marcus.

I was pretty torn about Marcus's intervention this ep. On the one hand, I'm not sure I get why one would buy a business and change its central concept, the one hook it has that makes it unique. On the other, THAT SHIT WAS STUPID. Who has walked into a clothing store and thought, "This is neat, but I wish I could order my clothes like I was drunk and eating salty pretzels"? At one point, Lady said something about wanting to have a personal connection to the shopper. I know some people like...bonding? with sales people. But I mostly want them out of my way, and certainly don't need them to be the priest who mediates my relationship to my...jeans. (That metaphor may have gotten away from me.) I want, at best, a personal connection to the clothes, not to the clothes-seller.

[camom]

I did not understand not letting the customers touch the jeans.  These are not the crown jewels that you need to protect from the masses.  That alone would make me not shop there.

[sarthaz]

I feel like the difference between "high margin add-ons" and "clutter that distracts from your core purpose" is a subtle one that depends heavily on who is speaking. If they have sufficient inventory to serve customers and still have space left over, then there's no problem with shirts and bikes and "I'm 100% In Charge" pillows.  But I could easily picture an alternate universe version taking place after this makeover. Evil Marcus walks in and strokes his goatee while saying "Where are all your jeans for 45 year olds?  Why do you have all this junk that takes up space when people come here for denim?"

 

Exactly what I thought.  Last season's Marcus would walk into this store and be like, "Why the hell are you selling $1000 electronic drones, candles, and hipster bikes in a jean store!?!"  The difference, I think, is less subtle and more about what crap Marcus has invested in lately.  Didya notice the bike was a Villy Custom?  All part of the CNBC family.  Marcus bought a bunch for Camping World and is looking into licensing them for NASCAR (no idea why, but Marcus's "Process" is thrown out the window when cross-promotion is involved).  If Lady had said, "Hey we should sell bikes here too!" he'd have thrown up.  One thing I don't understand, though -- how can this business function without the help of AT&T setting up their IT infrastructure?

[rehoboth]

Throughout the entire episode, one question kept coming up in my mind 'Why is Marcus investing in this?'  The only answer I could come up with is Marcus wants to be in the jeans business.  I mean usually the process is broken and he can swoop in and fix that but there are good people behind the broken process for the most part.  I don't really get that here.  The only people who seemed to be invested in the running of the business were some of the store managers.I wouldn't want Lady to be my store manager; I don't think she gets how businesses need to be run. 

 

Also, she described her store without the jeans bar as just  "The Gap on steroids" - like her store is better than the Gap.  Listen honey, at the Gap every employee hears the sales, the units per customer sold and the customer conversion rate every hour of every day through their headsets.  Every employee has an idea of how their store is doing financially every hour they are in that store.  I don't know if this concept would make Lady faint with excitement or if she would even realize the importance?

 

As far as why some of Marcus' enterprises have mainly only one product and in others he introduces a mix of products - I have a guess.  I think it has to do with margins.  If the margins on the jeans were higher, it would have a much higher percentage of the product mix.  The first example of a store being run the other way that came to my mind was the Key Lime pie company.  In that store the pies had the best margin and all the other miscellaneous key lime crap had low margins.  They took up valuable pie space and so were eliminated.  Does this seem right?

[cooksdelight]

Lady has no idea what she's doing. She seemed to be having more fun having lunch with Marcus. She likes the idea of being a store owner, but she has no clue. The other woman who fancied herself a COO was just as bad. I could not BELIEVE the amount of inventory in the basement!! And the clothes Marcus got rid of. I wanted to know what happened to that huge pile on the floor.

Also, Lady.... no one wants to shop in a bar, where they can't touch the clothes....hold them up next to themselves before trying them on. Again... clueless.

[Jesse]

As far as why some of Marcus' enterprises have mainly only one product and in others he introduces a mix of products - I have a guess.  I think it has to do with margins.  If the margins on the jeans were higher, it would have a much higher percentage of the product mix.  The first example of a store being run the other way that came to my mind was the Key Lime pie company.  In that store the pies had the best margin and all the other miscellaneous key lime crap had low margins.  They took up valuable pie space and so were eliminated.  Does this seem right?

 

I think that is right -- if the miscellaneous key lime crap had had good margins, he would have kept it.

[caligirl50]

In thinking about it, I do think taking the bar away was a mistake...but Marcus is smart.  We'll see what happens!

[Kiss my mutt]

Whenever I hear her name 'Lady' the John Denver song comes to mind. Lady.....are you crying....do those jeans belong to me? Anyone else? Not so much.

[clod]

Whenever I hear her name 'Lady' the John Denver song comes to mind.

 

 

Styx !     :)

[scootypuffjr]

I thought of Scrubs, where the Janitor was dating a lady named Lady. I was surprised to find that there actually existed someone with that name.

[septicptx0104]

Lady seems like a real sweetheart (the first few seconds of the negotiation when she made Marcus blush was adorable IMO) but I have to agree with the others: she is clueless on the dos and donts of running a business correctly. I'd like to think that maybe Marcus can give her some training but I'm not gonna hold my breath.

[SyncMaster]

Lady has no idea what she's doing. She seemed to be having more fun having lunch with Marcus. She likes the idea of being a store owner, but she has no clue. The other woman who fancied herself a COO was just as bad. I could not BELIEVE the amount of inventory in the basement!! And the clothes Marcus got rid of. I wanted to know what happened to that huge pile on the floor.

 

That was selfishly slick of her to update the org chart and to give herself a promotion in the process.

[selhars]

1) I didn't think Lady had to many management layers…HER problem was that she wasn't involved enough in the stores. And those are two different things. I can certainly see a person with three stores having someone the managers report to before getting to their level. I see no problem with a person who owns three car dealerships, or gyms, or salons…having a franchise or division/regional manager that hears from the various managers and reports to the corporate owner. That has nothing to do with Lady not even living in a city with one of her stores, or not visiting stores in more than a year. Owners have people who work for them…they don't need to be doing the job of a regional manager.

 

2) Very nit-picky point here….When are these shows taped?

Did Marcus said his mom died "recently?"… when he was talking to Lady about losing her mom.

His mom died in July 2013. Not exactly what I think of as recently.

(My mom died in Oct 2014…and I wouldn't say she died "recently.")

Edited November 29, 2015 by selhars

[nobodyyoucare]

There are people who keep answering machine messages of loved ones and listen to it every day despite it being years after the person died. They absolutely freak if the message is lost despite it being needed for the person to finally move on. 

[KHenry14]

There are people who keep answering machine messages of loved ones and listen to it every day despite it being years after the person died. They absolutely freak if the message is lost despite it being needed for the person to finally move on. 

 

Oh, my mother in law kept the phone message my late Father In Law had recorded for years. It would creep me out to hear his voice when I would call her. Eventually she let this go, but for a while it was strange

Edited December 1, 2015 by KHenry14

[selhars]

My point was just that when a person says "recently" -- about anything, just in conversation….I think at most a couple of months, not more than a year-and-a-half ago.

That's just not recent to me. It was just a comment about the time frame….the choice of wording.

((I went on a weekend away with friends in April….i wouldn't say "I saw them "recently""….which I guess is open to interpretation.))

Edited November 30, 2015 by selhars

[RemoteControlFreak]

One of the problems arising with this show is Marcus's desire to have his multiple businesses help each other.  According to http://www.theprofitupdates.com/2015/11/the-profit-denim-soul-blues-jean-bar.html , the people at Courage b have partnered with Denim & Soul.  And there was a Kota longboard as part of the for-sale display items at D&S.  

 

Also, do they now have a liquor license to sell the bottled booze that he claimed had SKUs?  Who buys a bottle of Jack Daniels along with their jeans and over-priced ironically-sloganed T-shirt?

 

2) Very nit-picky point here….When are these shows taped?

Did Marcus said his mom died "recently?"… when he was talking to Lady about losing her mom.
His mom died in July 2013. Not exactly what I think of as recently.
(My mom died in Oct 2014…and I wouldn't say she died "recently.")

The show was taped in the summer of 2015.
My mom died in November 2013 and it still seems recent.  So people's mileage varies with regard to this.

Edited January 12, 2016 by RemoteControlFreak

[qtpye]

The only time I heard the name lady was in reference to English Peerage and nobility or dogs.

 

Lady was quite pretty and seemed like a nice, uh. lady.  However, it almost felt like this store was a rich women's hobby rather then a business.  I know she has an MBA, so is probably smart, but damn was she clueless.

 

When she was claiming she did not understand the market for Denver, Boston, etc..., I was like, the hell?  A business understanding the market is the most important thing.  To put it this way, you do not open a brick and mortar location someplace unless you know the market inside out.  Even with this knowledge, there is no guarantee of success.  It just seemed like she was opening stores in cities she thought were cool.

[ae2]

I had this nice long post typed up for the previous episode (Lano Company) about how it's starting to drive me nuts when Marcus completely changes a company, but then I decided not to post it. Here he takes it to a new extreme. If the business didn't have denim in the name I'm not sure it would be recognizable as a "jeans store". There was so much new and random overpriced hipster junk. 

 

The bar concept might not have been perfect but at least it made the business somewhat different and unique. I thought he was going to change this into the jean store equivalent of a nice suit shop. Come in and get an expert to help you pick the perfect jeans, and even tailor them for you so they're the best pair of jeans you've ever worn.

 

Instead it's just another place with $160 hoodies and a throw pillow for $59 (!!) that says, "I am 100% in charge." (Is that a stealthy reminder for Lady that Marcus runs the show now?) Oh, and they happen to sell jeans too.

[ae2]

Also, I wish they have given an explanation for why the profit margin for jeans is 50% while other items like sweaters and shirts are in the 70% range. Usually it's obvious - expensive, perishable beef versus cheap potatoes with a long shelf life - but why is a cashmere sweater more profitable than high priced jeans jeans?

[nobodyyoucare]

Also, I wish they have given an explanation for why the profit margin for jeans is 50% while other items like sweaters and shirts are in the 70% range. Usually it's obvious - expensive, perishable beef versus cheap potatoes with a long shelf life - but why is a cashmere sweater more profitable than high priced jeans jeans?

http://business.time.com/2011/07/08/a-weak-argument-why-some-jeans-cost-300/answer is markups at every stage. The jeans may retail for 335 but the cost to the store could be 300. 

 

Sweaters/shirts likely don't have branding or as high advertising costs as the jeans. 

[lsjogren]

I see some pretty good critiques here. Usually the businesses Lemonis invests in have something unique to offer, which has led them to generating a decent amount of sales, while not generating income because they lack business skills.

These stores were selling quite a bit of product, but it is not clear why, the bar concept supposedly was the key but then that was scrapped as part of the "fix". The seem to still be in business and it appears they now have something like 6 stores, but what they have that other niche retailers don't is not at all clear. Perhaps a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Some staff who are good at working one on one with customers? Good choice of locations to serve their niche clientele? Ability to generate a small cult following sufficient to make the stores successful? The show really doesn't explain how and why these stores seem to work. I mean as dog eat dog as the clothes retailing business is, they must have something going for them.

[lsjogren]

I had this nice long post typed up for the previous episode (Lano Company) about how it's starting to drive me nuts when Marcus completely changes a company, but then I decided not to post it. Here he takes it to a new extreme. If the business didn't have denim in the name I'm not sure it would be recognizable as a "jeans store". There was so much new and random overpriced hipster junk. 

 

The bar concept might not have been perfect but at least it made the business somewhat different and unique. I thought he was going to change this into the jean store equivalent of a nice suit shop. Come in and get an expert to help you pick the perfect jeans, and even tailor them for you so they're the best pair of jeans you've ever worn.

 

Instead it's just another place with $160 hoodies and a throw pillow for $59 (!!) that says, "I am 100% in charge." (Is that a stealthy reminder for Lady that Marcus runs the show now?) Oh, and they happen to sell jeans too.

If so you have got to admit that is incredibly subtle. heh heh Yeah the randomness is truly weird. Tying up floor space in a jeans store to sell a bicycle? I like your idea of the tailor shop. The whole concept here is strange. I guess the innovative concept that Lemonis introduced was carry enough inventory so that you stand a decent shot at having the right size. And then sell a bunch of miscellaneous crap on the side.

But who knows, maybe it's a winner. If some goofball walks through the door a few times a year and decided to buy the bicycle, maybe that generates enough revenue to justify the bike's floor space.

[Amarsir]

48 minutes ago, lsjogren said:

But who knows, maybe it's a winner. If some goofball walks through the door a few times a year and decided to buy the bicycle, maybe that generates enough revenue to justify the bike's floor space.

My theory is that the bike is not there to be sold, but rather to make the store quirky in a way that's less intrusive than the "jeans bar" was. It's like those restaurants that have art on the wall with price tags. They don't really expect to make money selling art, but they get to pretend they're a gallery and if someone randomly buys something, even better.

[Thrifty]

Apparel stores in general confuse me.  I go to any shopping mall and see a ton of them.  J. Crew, Abercrombie and Fitch, Forever 21, The Gap... just to name the ones off the top of my head.  Why these exist confuses me, I think, because I'm a guy and not a particularly fashionable one.  I get all my clothes at Walmart or Target.  Sometimes I'll get funny t-shirts off various web sites, and sometimes in souvenir shops.

[cooksdelight]

I buy a lot of clothes in local thrift stores. One supports area veterans, two others support animal rescue, and one is for a battered women's shelter. I get name brand clothing, hardly worn in most cases, for $1 or less. I cannot tell you the last time I went into a mall.

It's not that I'm cheap or anything, but why pay $75 for these jeans when I can grab a nice pair of Levis or GAP jeans for a few bucks?

[Thrifty]

7 minutes ago, cooksdelight said:

I buy a lot of clothes in local thrift stores. One supports area veterans, two others support animal rescue, and one is for a battered women's shelter. I get name brand clothing, hardly worn in most cases, for $1 or less. I cannot tell you the last time I went into a mall.

It's not that I'm cheap or anything, but why pay $75 for these jeans when I can grab a nice pair of Levis or GAP jeans for a few bucks?

My sisters, who have to economize because they have kids, shop at Goodwill a lot.  I probably would too but I find them too disorganized.  Plus I'm a big guy and can't find stuff in my size.