Macy’s opens more strip mall stores as expansion strategy faces pivotal test

Fitting rooms are spacious and modern, and placed at the center of the store. They include a cash register where a sales associate can help find an item in another color, size or brand, including merchandise that may not be available in the smaller store.

Joy Salvador, senior director of strategy and new store format for Macy’s, said the retailer has researched and tracked customers’ responses — down to the fitting-room wallpaper they favor in social media posts.

Shoppers at Market by Macy’s skew more toward a customer looking for gifts, or shopping for occasions, than the mall stores, Salvador said.It also skews a little more toward men than other locations, perhaps because of the convenience factor, she added.

Most customers come from a narrower radius –as little as 10 miles versus mall stores, which can draw from as many as 100 miles away.

Merchandise has a local bent, too, she said. For example, the company carries Japanese beauty brand Shiseido in an Atlanta store with a larger proportion of shoppers of Asian descent, and more Black-owned beauty brands like Buttah Skin in another Atlanta area store.