T.G.I. Friday’s

North Shore Army & Navy

August Retail Sales Fell By 3.6%

Contacting pcAmerica

T.G.I. Friday’s

T.G.I. Friday’s opened up on Manhattan’s East Side in 1965. At that time, single women didn’t go to bars. T.G.I. Friday’s called it the “happy hour” and encouraged single women to “hang out.” The idea was that if you can get single women to “hang out”, you will get more men to “hang out.” The result was the “dawn of the singles age.”

T.G.I. Friday’s took in 1 million dollars that first year (great for a new restaurant in 1965) and currently has over 300 restaurants worldwide.

T.G.I. Friday’s also claims to be the inventors of Long Island Ice Tea, Loaded Potato Skins, and non-alcoholic Smoothies.

In 1972, T.G.I. Friday’s started its tradition of welcoming Friday in at midnight on Thursday night. Every Thursday night is like a New Year’s Eve party, with champagne, confetti and noisemakers. It’s been a long time since I have been single, but T.G.I. Friday’s succeeded in starting a trend to get people into their bar and restaurant on Thursday nights.

Read more about T.G.I. Friday’s history at:

http://fridays.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=64

As a retail store or restaurant owner, what trends can you start?

North Shore Army & Navy

It was back in the 1960’s when I landed a great job at the North Shore Army & Navy store in Flushing NY. I did work since I was 4 years old in my Father’s grocery store before finally getting my first non-family job when I was 17 years old.

Getting a part time job was what many high school kids did to make some money especially during their senior year. Many of my friends worked in supermarkets. I landed a rare job in a clothing store.

I have to say that I learned more about sales, retailing, and life in this store than I learned or could have learned in my college business courses. I worked at North Shore four years and became one of their top sales people. My salary sky-rocketed from $3.00 per hour to $5.75 an hour when I left 4 years later to a more lucrative occupation, driving a cab.

So what did I learn?

I earned $3.00 an hour. That was about 25 cents more than the going rate for “kids” at the time. The manager wanted the best and was willing to pay a little more for quality.

North Shore Army & Navy was one of the biggest and busiest stores in the area. At times, there was a line of 10 or more people waiting to pay. The P.O.S. system was a pad. You handwrote all the items purchased on a pad. For example, 3 shirts @$6.95 = $20.85. Next, you needed to add up the subtotal. We didn’t use calculators or adding machines. Calculators weren’t invented yet (at least calculators as we know them now).

Once you got your subtotal, you needed to add the tax. Luckily, we had paper tax table charts so were able to find that amount on the chart and add it to the bill.

Back in 1960’s, the only people who wore jeans were working people. No one wore jeans to school. The owner of North Shore Army & Navy saw a trend. He already had the rights to sell Levi Jeans and he rode the trend by filling up the store with thousands of pairs of jeans for the general public. The blue jeans were most popular. Colors came next. North Shore became the store that attracted thousands of customers from all over the area. Everyone wanted a pair of jeans. North Shore kept its uniqueness by always having every size in stock. You could get jeans in sizes from  28X28 to 52X30. Your size was always in stock.

The manager of the store (Hank) was just amazing. I don’t know where he is now, but he gave me a ful M.B.A. experience in running a business. We checked inventory on a daily basis. If any size was missing, it was quickly replaced with the extra stock in the basement.

Hank was always ahead of the curve. The store that was originally geared to the working class became a trendy store for youngsters. The next big trend was T-Shirts. A few girls came into the store looking for T-Shirts with the names of colleges on them. A few weeks later, Hank started a whole section of the store devoted to college T-Shirts.

Hank transformed the Army & Navy store into a trendy store that attracted working people, females, teenagers, college students and all who needed jeans, T-shirts, shorts, working shoes, sneakers, hiking shoes, and all else considered trendy.

Customer service was Hank’s number 1 priority. If a customer walked into the store, he would be greeted by a sales person. Can I help you find anything? Greeting customers was probably invented in the store. If the customer couldn’t find a particular item in a particular color or size, it was the job of the salesman to check the inventory in the basement. Many times, Joe was our computer. Joe was responsible for keeping items in stock and he knew the stock better than any computer. He knew if Shirt #38235 was in stock in blue. He also knew that those sneakers were #H92382 not #H92381. He was a built-in computer.

When you came into that Army Navy store, you had great customer service. If it wasn’t in stock, we would call our sister store and have it delivered to the home store within 24 hours. If neither store had it, Hank would find another store that did have it and do a trade. Never lose a sale. Never lose a customer.

I was a great sales person and quickly got a 25 cents raise. I loved helping the girls. Most of them didn’t talk to me in high school, but when they needed a Princeton University T-Shirt in size small, I was the go to person.

I became a Math Major. I could add 5, 10 or 25 items almost instantly. Many of the papers I needed to write in my business courses were all related to the Army & Navy store. It became the core of my business knowledge.

Alas, the store had to close. The local department stores started to sell jeans, T-shirts, sneakers, and work boots. Even Wallach’s, the high class men’s store started selling jeans.

Hank eventually retired. He had a great run, but couldn’t keep up with the department stores that became better at keeping up with the latest trends. Joe was replaced by a P.O.S. system.

The unfortunate thing about modern point of sale systems is that when the electricity goes out or you get a computer glitch, the store has to shut down. (A good reason to make sure you have a UPS, Uninterruptible Power Supply).