Venture was in trouble long before that promotion, and the final CEO was exploiting Venture for his own purposes. I'm not sure he could have kept it from tanking, but he surely didn't help make things better.
That 100th/50th free customer promotion must have cut into sales hard. Imagine a customer getting an expensive TV for nothing. Then you add it up to other expensive items and there is no wonder why Venture went under.
Venture was in trouble long before that promotion, which was more likely either a last-gasp effort, or perhaps a hairbrained idea of the last CEO who mostly seemed interested making Venture's coffers his own.
Anybody could see that promotion was horrific at best. Imagine if Walmart did that. Look at how many customers one store has in one hour. Multiply that by at least 100 stores and one gets an idea of how stupid that promotion was for the company.
Venture never came close to being the size of Walmart, but I see the 'layoffs to cut expenses' as a slippery slope, as once it started at Venture it became an annual process that was all downhill.
Venture Stores...spun off from May Department Stores in 1989, closed doors in 1998. Then May got bought out by Macy's.
Venture?
I remember when they did that "every 100th customer gets their entire purchase FREE" promotion.
Then they made it every 50th customer.
They were gone a couple of years later.
That seems like just asking to get ripped off/exploited. No wonder they tanked.
Venture was in trouble long before that promotion, and the final CEO was exploiting Venture for his own purposes. I'm not sure he could have kept it from tanking, but he surely didn't help make things better.
I never heard that before. Must have been after I left the company.
This would be around 1994-95.
That 100th/50th free customer promotion must have cut into sales hard. Imagine a customer getting an expensive TV for nothing. Then you add it up to other expensive items and there is no wonder why Venture went under.
Venture was in trouble long before that promotion, which was more likely either a last-gasp effort, or perhaps a hairbrained idea of the last CEO who mostly seemed interested making Venture's coffers his own.
Anybody could see that promotion was horrific at best. Imagine if Walmart did that. Look at how many customers one store has in one hour. Multiply that by at least 100 stores and one gets an idea of how stupid that promotion was for the company.
It was actually due to overexpansion in such a short time, but yeah, there's a reason nobody does THAT deal anymore.
A store called Ames did that in the late 1990s and early 2000s. They closed in 2002.
Then Macy’s started closing a lot of their stores too.
I see, I was just curious. I had to look up what that is because I don't remember them.
They were primarily in the middle Midwest.
Yes, I'm seeing they never "ventured" into michigan. Indiana and Illinois, but not here.
Venture never came close to being the size of Walmart, but I see the 'layoffs to cut expenses' as a slippery slope, as once it started at Venture it became an annual process that was all downhill.
😸😸😸
I thought about writing the exact same thing in terms of 'ventured'.