Insight
Appel: No Retailer Has Ever Successfully Shifted From High-Low to Everyday Low Pricing
“My experience is there has never been a company that has gone from high low pricing to everyday low pricing that, that succeeded.”
Prediction Held up
Appel: Rite Aid Cannot Survive Against CVS and Walgreens
“I just don't see them, I don't see them survive, because they're like the third wheel, and you've got two strong, nationwide, well-run competitors.”
Insight
Appel: Liquidity is the primary prerequisite for any corporate turnaround
“Liquidity is number one. So that, because basically if you don't have sufficient liquidity to buy you the time to fix the company, you know, you can have the greatest team in the world. You can have a great plan, but you won't be able to make it happen.”
Insight
Appel: Organizations cannot execute more than four or five turnaround priorities simultaneously
“You can't do more than four or five things at the same time and get the organization to do it. You've got to really narrow it and say, okay, here's the 80%, I call it the 80% solution. Here's the four or five things we need to do to get 80% of the way there. A…”
Opinion
Appel: Bed Bath & Beyond Alienated Vendors By Shifting To Private Label
“When you look at what happened at Bed Bath & Beyond, you know, the vendor community basically said, you know what, you know, you got rid of all of us. You went to private label. And now you want us to come back and, you know, we've already readjusted our busin…”
Insight
Appel: Companies that nobody would miss should not be saved
“It's kind of like the thing is, is that if this company went out of business tomorrow, would anybody care? And if the answer is no, then it's not a keeper.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Appel: Many Direct-to-Consumer Companies Will Go Out of Business
“I would say that you're going to see a lot of direct to consumer companies go out of business a lot because the model.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Appel: Best Buy Is Well-Managed and Will Be Fine
“Best Buy, it's a well-managed company, you know, and they'll be, you know, they'll be fine.”
What-if
Appel: JCPenney Would Have Failed Without Mall Operator Ownership
“If it weren't for the fact that JCPenney is owned by Simon and Brookfield, who are big mall operators, they would have gone out of business.”
Insight
Appel: Mid-Market Department Stores Face Severe Vulnerability
“The companies, the retail companies that are in the sort of the middle, you know, and a lot of those department store companies are there are very vulnerable today because what's working with consumers as luxury, of course, because there's people always have m…”
Assertion Supported
Appel: Occupancy rates in top-tier malls are near all-time highs
“And if anything, what's interesting is, you know, among the better properties, the occupancy rate is almost higher than it's ever been.”
Insight
Appel: Most profitable retail stores often pay highest rent per square foot
“But very often what I've seen is that the most profitable stores can also have the highest rent per square foot because, you know, there's a direct relationship between that and, you know, traffic and sales.”
Insight
Appel: Troubled companies cannot survive by merely executing failing strategies better
“If you're really having difficulties, then, you know, the management always feels, oh, all we have to do is do what we're doing better and we'll be okay. But the answer really is, is that no, you've got to start doing things differently, all right, because wha…”
Insight
Appel: Integrating BNPL gives retailers an immediate revenue boost
“If you've got a customer that's, you know, lower middle income and lower income custom customers who have difficulty accessing credit one of the things that, that gives you an immediate Boost is if you put in one of the buy now, pay later companies like Klarna…”
Insight
Appel: Replacing underperforming store managers drives almost instantaneous retail turnaround
“And it's a perfect example for retailers and store managers, all right? Is that you might have a store that's in a good location and it's not performing and you know the store manager needs to be replaced and you bring in a new store manager and who's really, …”
Insight
Appel: Distressed Companies Get Stakeholder Support Only If Business Is Viable
“When you tell people, most people, we need your help, all right, they usually respond because they appreciate the honesty and the fact that you're in a partnership, right? You've got all these partnerships with all different stakeholders, and when you do that …”
Assertion Partly supported
Appel: Costco marks up products roughly 15% to 17% above cost
“They market up, I don't know, 15 or 17% above cost, and, you know, that, and they are great merchants.”
Assertion Supported
Appel: Costco's higher pay and holiday closures result in low turnover
“They really respect their employees and they pay them better than the competition. They treat them better. You know, Costco is closed on the major holidays because they feel that their associates should be home with, you know, with their families on Thanksgivi…”
Insight
Appel: Costco sells inventory before paying vendors, boosting cash flow
“The other thing too about their model is, is that the velocity of their sales is fantastic. So basically, It gets on the shelf and is sold probably most of the time before they have to pay the vendor. So that, so from a cashflow perspective, it's an incredible…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Appel: Major off-price retailers require billion-dollar scale for acquisitions
“And they said, you know, unless it's a billion dollar business, we're really not interested.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Appel: Private equity executives' top regret is delaying personnel changes
“One of the things I've, Run a lot of private equity conferences, and one of the questions we always ask the private equity people on the panel is, you know, if you had to do something differently, what would it be? And they say, we would have made personnel ch…”
Insight
Appel: Evaluating Turnaround Viability Quickly Is the Hardest Restructuring Challenge
“The hardest thing is really Really being able to evaluate the chances of success of the company. So that's the number one thing you have to do because you have to say to yourself, realistically, can you restructure a company? Can you turn it around or not? So …”
