STORES Convention Daily - 2018 Big Show Day 1 - 24

2018 SUNDAY

24

Thriving
Continued from page 22

Burgers were priced a few dollars above
fast food - still significantly below sitdown restaurants - and it was a perfect fit
for an increasingly difficult market.
"As a lot of people's businesses contracted, we found ourselves in a position
where the talent and the real estate were
there," says co-founder and CEO Tom

Ryan. "We grew like crazy during the
recession." Now Smashburger has some
400 stores across the United States and nine
other countries, with an expanded menu
featuring craft beers and Haagen-Dazs
milkshakes and malts.
Ryan - a food industry veteran behind Pizza Hut's stuffed crust pizza and
the McGriddle for McDonald's - was
aware of a "latent demand dissatisfaction"
around burgers.
"Once people discovered that there was a

great-tasting burger that wasn't going to
cost you an arm and a leg, that you could
access with about the same grace and ease
with a little bit higher level than fast food,
they would gravitate to it," he says. "And
they certainly did."
The brand continues to evolve without disrupting its roots; the idea is to be
"perpetually relevant to the 32-year-old
mindset," or the age group that a young
adult might look up to and an older adult
might still wish to be.
Smashburger continues to introduce
new menu items with trendy ingredients
like goat cheese, truffle mayo or Applewood smoked bacon, as well as sides like
flash-fried green beans and carrot strips.
It's also morphed stores' décor and music,
and incorporated digital menu boards for
flexibility and dynamic pricing.
"We're a highly differentiated brand,"
Ryan says. "I've always had an aversion to
being formulaic."

An experience of luxury

For most, the words "indulgent,"
"comfortable" and "rewarding" don't come
to mind when thinking about shopping for
lingerie and swimwear. Journelle's experience can leave women surprised.
"We hire fabulous sales associates
who are smart, passionate professionals,
and the store environment is comfortable," Lewis says. "Even when we're
at our busiest, it's not chaotic. We keep
it tidy and easy to shop. Most lingerie
mom-and-pop shops have lingerie coming out of every corner, and at Victoria's
Secret, bras are spilling out of drawers. At
Journelle, we're serving Italian chocolates
and popping Prosecco at every opportunity.
This stuff matters."
The company, which opened its first
store in Manhattan's Union Square, came at
a time when luxury shoppers who still had
money to spend often desired to do so more
discreetly. Not only that: Past economic

Smashburger was uniquely positioned to grow during the recession.

Tomorrow

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Continued from page 1

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895990_VCount.indd 1

12/13/17 12:21 AM

delivered the strong growth we saw
in 2017. And as retailers compete and
learn, they're delivering better experiences for consumers, better career
prospects for employees and stronger
performance for investors.
The big picture for retail is positive and promising: Retail's immense
size is the all-important context to
keep in mind whenever you hear an
industry statistic. For example, there's
a widespread misperception that retail
jobs are disappearing, when in fact
retail directly employs more than 13
million Americans and supports 42
million jobs overall.
Further, retailers are creating
hundreds of thousands of new jobs
in corporate headquarters, in innovation and distribution centers, but the

Journelle continues to promise women an
indulgent and rewarding escape.

downturns have proven that beauty sales
rise as incomes fall. Journelle continues to
offer world-weary women a rather private,
much-needed escape. That's especially so
in New York, where three of Journelle's
shops are located; the fourth is in Chicago.
"New York City is a grind," Lewis
says. "I love her, but she's a grind."
Lewis joined Journelle in 2013 as
director of operations and became CEO in
late 2015 when founder Claire Chambers
stepped aside. From the start, it has been a
time of questioning what "treating yourself" truly means. The questions that most
challenge Lewis today regard ecommerce
and the ability to recreate the store experience through other channels.
"We have wonderful people that sit
behind our website," she says. "But lingerie
is a tricky thing to put online." The fun images are often the "super sexy" ones - but
they don't necessarily convey what the
See "Thriving" on page 26

current Bureau of Labor Statistics
system doesn't count them. NRF is
actively working to correct this.
Or take store closings. While
some retailers did close storefronts
last year, and not a small number,
many thousands of stores also opened
in 2017.
You'll hear all of these exciting themes this year at NRF 2018,
whether in discussions with fellow
attendees, during sessions with industry experts and insiders, or on the
convention floor where retail leaders
will show the latest innovations.
We're confident that the next few
days will offer the best view of the
industry's future, and we're thrilled
you can join us to discuss, contribute,
meet and learn. Thank you for being
here.
-NRF President and CEO
Matthew R. Shay
http://www.journelle.com/ http://v-count.com
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of STORES Convention Daily - 2018 Big Show Day 1
