Tracy Mullin, who is retiring today after 14 years as president/CEO of the National Retail Federation, tells Jayne O'Donnell that the biggest change she's seen during her tenure is industry
consolidation as national chains gobbled up regional department store. It has been good for the consumer -- resulting in lower prices and quicker replenishment of hot items -- but makes for an
entirely different atmosphere at the NRF's conventions, where regional players used to compare notes congenially. "You don't really see that anymore because they're all competing for the same consumer
dollar," she says.
CEOs that really stand out are Macy's Ed Finkelstein, who created Macy's Cellar, and Bloomingdale's Marvin Traub, who she says was a genius. "They would pick a
country, and that would be the country they'd focus on for a year. You'd learn about the products they made, the food they served. It was really revolutionary, brilliant retailing."
As for
Wal-Mart, she recounts how the leaders of the NRF's predecessor organization, the National Retail Merchants Association, turned down Sam Walton's membership application because he was a discounter. He
created a competing organization now known as the Retail Industry Leaders Association, and the two trade groups almost merged last year. "We'll get [Wal-Mart] eventually," Mullin says. "It will
happen."
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