Tony Spring's back-to-basics plan gave Macy's its best comp sales in 12 quarters
New CEO Tony Spring admitted Macy's wasn't as good as it thought, re-staffed 125 priority stores, and won over its harshest critic.
What was changed
Fortune profiles the turnaround Tony Spring began after taking over Macy's, Inc. in early 2024 following a decade running Bloomingdale's. His starting point was candour: the 167-year-old chain had long been in denial — 'We had to have a moment of reflection and say, we're not as good as we think we are,' Spring told Fortune. Sales slid from an all-time high of $28.1 billion in 2014 to just above $22.3 billion a decade later, and brands like Ralph Lauren, Coach, Nike and Levi's pulled out over subpar presentation.
Spring's plan is retail fundamentals: enough staffing to justify department-store service, well-maintained stores with appealing presentation, and newer brands, at a shrunken footprint — from 449 locations to around 350, with 125 'priority' stores getting disproportionate investment.
At the Topanga Westfield store in Los Angeles he walked analyst Neil Saunders — who had spent years posting photos of unfolded sweater piles and broken shelving — past styled mannequins, doubled women's-shoe staffing, tripled dress-area staffing and staffed fitting rooms. Saunders came away impressed: 'Their merchandising is sharper. There is greater neatness on the shop floor.' And, he told Fortune, Spring's openness to criticism was the biggest change — 'a really big sea change'.
Spring also ran a cultural reset for a workforce battered by falling revenue, closures and cuts — 'we're all singing from the same hymnal', he said. The early results: last quarter Macy's reported its best comparable sales performance in 12 quarters, up 1.1% year over year, an encouraging sign the plan is taking hold.
Why it worked
Years of cost cuts had created a vicious cycle: denser floors and self-service shoes drove away exactly the customers who pay department-store prices.
The 2006 $11 billion mega-merger left clusters of cannibalising stores and no unifying culture, per Kotter's Kathy Gersch.
Engaging critic Neil Saunders directly signalled internally that the problems were real and being fixed.
Concentrating investment on 125 priority stores concentrates proof of concept where it shows fastest.
What can be applied
A legacy retailer's first fix is admitting the store experience decayed: staff the floor, neaten the shelves, and court the critics who documented the mess.
Aftermath
Macy's plans to close a few dozen more locations and keep roughly 225 stores beyond the 125 priority stores, aiming for about 350 in total alongside e-commerce. The 1.1% comp gain is modest, and Fortune frames the turnaround as promising rather than complete, but the sales trajectory, brand resets and critic conversions mark the first plan in years that is visibly taking.