Broadening My Horizons: 1959 to 1964

After working as an assistant buyer for a department store I was given the opportunity to work in a slightly different type of International Trade function. Because of my experience in floor coverings I was hired by R.H Macy Foreign  Buying office in a position with the title of assistant import market representative. Again sounds impressive, but titles should be.

R.H Macy Corporate Foreign  Buying Office: A Special Organization

This organization was at the time rather unique. As a corporate division, this unit functioned as the overseas product market research and importing unit for 6 separate R.H. Macy department store divisions that had retail stores in 6 different regions of the US. Each of these divisions operated separately with its own buyer/department managers with as many as 6 branch retail units each, centered in various regional cities of the US such as New York City, Newark, NJ,Atlanta GA or Toledo, OH.  As part of a cooperative buying office, we also represented all the retail divisions of the May Department Store Group in selecting and buying their directly imported merchandise. Their retail units were at the time considered as non-competing because they were located in different areas of the US then the Macy stores. this combined arrangement gave the foreign buying group considerable buying power. Learning to satisfy each these individual store buyers was a "real" learning experience in salesmanship.

This "Corporate Foreign  Buying Office" had at the time 6 overseas offices responsible for researching merchandise opportunities in their assigned regions. The offices were located in Paris, France; London, England; Frankfurt, West Germany; Florence, Italy; Zurich, Switzerland; and Osaka, Japan. An additional office was opened in the early 1960's in Hong Kong (then a British Colony) to cover South East Asian countries including Hong Kong itself , the Republic of China (Taiwan), the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore .

From Floor Coverings to Household Goods to Apparel.

The Macy Corporate Foreign  Buying Office was organized into various departments that covered a number of product categories. My unit covered Floor Coverings, Household Goods, Dinner Ware, Glass Ware, Personal Stationary/Office Products and Toys. Learning all these product categories was a challenge, but the variety made it very interesting. A major part of my responsibility was preparing for the semi annual buying meetings that were held for each department store product group. Usually these meetings were held in New York and attended by all 12 buyers from the various stores we represented. At these meeting orders would be placed by each store and the success of each meeting was measured in the dollar volume of orders placed. Basically the Corporate Foreign  Buying Office was competing with the many importer/distributor firms that offered very similar products. In the case of direct importing (through our office) buyers had to place commitments months in advance with shipments from the overseas suppliers. But with the indirect imported products purchased from importer/distributors they could usually place orders for immediate delivery because the products were already stocked in the US.

Starting My Own Unit: Boy's Apparel and Men's Shoes

After gaining enough experience to operate independently, I was given the opportunity to supervise the Boy's Apparel and Men's Shoes product groups as a separate unit. As many things in life timing is very important. In 1961-62, the production of boy's apparel was moving offshore and the European sources were providing top quality fashion forward products while Japan and Hong Kong were providing basic items such as pants and shirts at very sharp prices in good quality. At the same time men's shoes from England and Italy were becoming very popular. With the cooperation of some key store buyers, I was able to triple the volume of these direct import categories within three years.

Moving Ahead With Added Responsibility

With the success in the in the Boy's Apparel and Men's Shoes product groups, I was promoted to full Import Market Representative and given more product responsibility. At the end of 1964, i was promoted again to Senior Import Market Representative and was in charge of all Men's and Boy's Apparel and Footwear. At this point I really wanted some overseas exposure with direct face to face contact with our overseas personnel and suppliers.