When I feel a little careless, I go shopping in Club Monaco, Banana Republic, J. Crew, Aritzia (wait – this article isn’t about that, how about I just stop here). When I’m feeling like I’m ready to be thrifty and feel really great about my purchases, I RUN to Forever21, H&M, Target, and Joe’s. When I’m completely out of control, you can find me in Holts, Saks, Tiffany’s or locked in my house for fear of what I might do.
This story isn’t about my shopping problem, which evidently I may or may not have (don’t answer that), but about a store I used to really like, love actually, and how it has completely fallen off my fashion map, perhaps yours too, and seemingly might be falling off the proverbial map altogether.
We’re talking about Jacob.
For those sticklers, Boutique Jacob Inc, based out of Montreal, is heading down a dark road, one you may have noticed in recent years or months. Personally, I’ve seen the quality diminish, prices soar (seriously, you’re Jacob, slow your role), and more black, white and brown than I’ve ever seen in one store (even more than Club Monaco!).
Jacob was just granted court protection from creditors “citing sizeable losses and blaming burgeoning competitors from international retailers.” So what exactly does that mean? Glad you so eagerly asked you little go getter you!!
Granting protection from creditors (people you owe money too, such as the clothing/fabric suppliers for Jacob) is close to bankruptcy… but please know, its NOT bankruptcy. Having been granted protection allows Jacob time to restructure its debt payments, so effectively it’s a “restructuring”. In my opinion, the big wigs at Jacob seemed to have missed the boat on the inexpensive-disposable clothing trend we’ve enjoyed the past few years, something I feel they could have totally jumped on, and maybe even owned 2-3 years ago. They of course had Jacob Connexion, but it seemed confused itself, totally drab, and not really on trend, and now folded into the regular Jacob stores, another sign things weren’t great for the company. So, what’s left is for those in charge to shuffle things around. Perhaps get rid of some people, hire better execs with experience in this type of financial situation, and get Jacob turned around, quickly. OR, they might look to be acquired by another company. Who, you may ask, well, one of those rumored companies is Reitmans, Canada’s largest specialty apparel chain – I know, I had no idea either!
This has turned into a long article, but one I thought loads of you might/could/should find interesting… come on, its about fashion, a trend towards US stores moving up north (J.Crew is coming soon, Victoria Secret just arrived), the changing landscape of Canadian/US retailers and a little about business, and dang, its only the morning!
Now go – shop for the holidays, don’t make me feel like I’m the only one, and stay tuned for the next episode of Young and the Restless, opps, I mean, Fashion and the Retail Landscape… who knows, it might catch on!
About Adrienne
I agree that Jacob’s prices became somewhat unreasonable, but I have to say, I still love the chain’s clothes! I’m curious to see what happens. I like supporting Canadian retailers…I hope our market doesn’t become too saturated with U.S. chains!
http://torontoretail.wordpress.com/2010/11/23/tough-times-at-jacob/
I used to be one of Jacob’s best customers. I shopped there religiously and was often seen dressed head to toe Jacob (sad, I know). I always asked for Jacob gift certificates for Christmas and my birthday and never had a problem spending them – until recently that is. I work near a Jacob so am in there often and in the last year, I have been hard pressed to find anything that catches my eye. I agree the prices are too high and the clothes have gone down hill. I liked Jacob before because you could find classic styles for the office that were trendy but not over the top.
I will be sad to see them go (if that’s what happens) but if they stick around, they had better pull their socks up!
I am a current employee at Jacob (however, for personal reasons I probably should not reveal my location). And yes, I feel like our company is taking a major hit with his issue. Not only is the whole situation of having little money to adequately pay our creditors a major problem, but because the owner did not alert the public when it FIRST becamean issue, the media are distorting the story and claiming we are bankrupt. This taints the image of the company even worse and sullys the already low opinions of Jacob customers. Other stores in our mall have actually sent out emails to their employees with this claim and so I suspect their employees are also sharing the news with potential customersof our store. It’s sad that it had to happen this way, but if the company communicated better externally AND internally, maybe these problems would not have risen to the scale that they have.
Thanks so much for your comments!
We agree with everyone, and feel sad for the company – as it really didn’t need to come to this… well, at least we feel that way!
Thanks for keeping the conversation going…
We’ll just have to wait and see how this all plays out.
XO MF!
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I am personally no longer sad to see them go. As an athletic woman in her 30s, I found that their apparel became more and moare tailored to young women with the hips of 14 year old boys. Their Annex stores boasted very little quality and degraded the Jacob brand, which was originally targetted for professionals. Wish they would come back to their roots…
As a former employee myself, I was with the company for over 3 yrs . I could see the company going in the wrong direction. As all of my regular customers felt the items were overpriced and the poor quality of clothing. The company believed that customer service was there priority, but they did not want to spend the money on staff coverage. This left managers to cover every aspect of the sales floor. I believe you get what you give and Jacob gave their clients nothing so its perfect they get NOTHING in return
I used to be a sales associate at Jacob, and it was an okay experience, especially since it was my first “real job” in high school. My friends laboured away in movie theatres and babysitting jobs, and were extremely envious of me. The discounts (50% off) were great! Plus, the clothing were of good quality (this was a few years ago, I haven’t shopped there since), and it was relatively affordable compared to say…Banana Republic or Club Monaco.
However, I must say, the management there (even at retail level) was not very efficient. I truly believe that the culture at Jacob does need a bit of work. I don’t entirely blame the management team, since they did have a lot to do with the lack of staffing and the high employee turnover rate (I saw half the newly-hired staff go within 3 months). But as soon as I started at a new job, I realized that the lack of attention given to sales associates was mind-boggling. We often went to our shifts, stood there for 8 hours or chatted with co-workers, and absolutely nothing about the company strategy, possible upcoming marketing promotions, or even customer feedback and opinion were related to us. Most importantly, we were NEVER once asked for our feedback, which I think is SO crucial, since sales associates are the “front-line” of any retail chain. None of the sales associates felt that they were in it for the long haul (cutting hours, no benefits, not offering FT to Part-timers who work FT hours – for 39…40 hours/wk, and absolutely no sense that we were all in it together with Head Office).
Overall, it was okay, minimum wage job with no benefits but a good discount plan. Absolutely no motivation to work there unless you NEEDED the money (and even then, I left for another job). That’s just my experience at my store, maybe people had better/wores experiences
that’s just my 2 cents.