Zales how many stores

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His next step was to close Zale's New York and Puerto Rico manufacturing operations--instead turning to vendors for store stock. He also sold off the company's diamond inventory and reduced the company's large advertising budget.

In the company acquired Gordon Jewelry Corporation, the nation's second largest retail jewelry chain. Three years later, Zale verged on collapse. Zale attempted to restructure the company, announcing the closing of stores and a reduction of its headquarters, but its creditors began threatening to force the company into bankruptcy. By the end of January , Zale joined the growing list of failing jewelry companies and petitioned for voluntary bankruptcy. When Zale emerged from Chapter 11 in as an independent, publicly traded company Peoples also went into bankruptcy and lost control of Zale , its debt was settled and it had fewer stores.

The new management team worked to restructure the company, creating separate and independent divisions of the Zales and Gordon's stores.

Zales was repositioned as the McDonald's of jewelry retail, with national ads promoting chainwide, standardized merchandise. In all three chains, the merchandising practices were overhauled through a 'key item' approach in which each format's bestselling products were given special prominence. The key products were promoted heavily in advertising, and each store began keeping a generous supply of the items to make sure customers could always find them in stock.

DiNicola also brought to Zale a newfound focus on tying promotions to the various gift-giving and high-traffic holiday periods that occur throughout the year, rather than depending so heavily on the November-December shopping season, as had been company tradition.

At the same time, Zale began spending millions of dollars remodeling stores and also opened new outlets and closed additional underperforming units. During , for example, the company opened 35 units, closed 85, and remodeled While the overall number of store units was remaining fairly constant in the mids as the restructuring unfolded, the Zales chain was being steadily expanded.

The number of Zales outlets grew from in to in The latter year saw Zale initiate additional changes to its lineup of formats. The company's Diamond Park Fine Jewelers division, which at the time operated leased jewelry shops within such department stores as Parisian and Marshall Field's, was sold to Finlay Enterprises, Inc. Following this move, Zale had three national jewelry chains positioned in three different segments of the market.

By Zale appeared to be fully recovered from its fall into bankruptcy. Perhaps even more importantly, for the first time in the company's history Zale posted profits in all four quarters of the fiscal year; historically, Zale had made all of its profits in the second quarter, which included the November-December shopping season.

Zale's improved financial health provided additional opportunities for expansion beyond the opening of new stores. The company had entered the direct selling business in when it produced its first sales catalog, then followed up with the launch of zale.

In a new division called Zales Outlet was formed, and ten Zales Outlet stores were soon opened throughout the country to pursue sale growth through the burgeoning outlet mall channel. Zale envisioned that there was long-term potential for between and outlet locations nationwide. The company also felt confident enough about its future to complete two major acquisitions.

Peoples had gone through its own period of bankruptcy, and at the time of the acquisition was the leading Canadian jewelry retailer, with stores. Most of these were Peoples Jewellers outlets, which were essentially the Canadian equivalent of the Zales chain, with a couple of dozen or so Mappins Jewelers stores, which were similar to Gordon's. This company's outlets, most of which were mall kiosks operating under the Piercing Pagoda name, catered primarily to teens and offered low-priced gold jewelry--including chains, charms, bracelets, rings, and earrings--and a selection of silver and diamond jewelry.

One of the firm's marketing tactics was to offer free ear piercing with the purchase of earrings. Because the typical Piercing Pagoda customer was unlikely to shop at a Zales or any of Zale Corporation's other outlets, Zale saw this acquisition as a way to further expand its presence in malls without cannibalizing existing sales. In between the two acquisitions, a number of other significant events occurred.

In September Beryl B. Raff had worked with DiNicola at Macy's and was hired in by DiNicola from Macy's, where she had been the department store's top jewelry executive. By doing so, Zale eliminated its exposure to bad consumer debt, an increasing problem in the late s and into the 21st century as personal bankruptcies were increasing steadily.