The Neiman Marcus Group is reaching out to those who aspire to be luxury buyers on a budget with a new store and web site.
Known as Last Call, the brand, which Neiman Marcus launched online and with a retail concept store called Last Call Studio, features fashionable apparel at discounts of 30% to 40%.
To attract online shoppers, LastCall.com will feature content on new fashions and how to dress fashionably for less.
“We are redefining the off-price market by launching the LastCall.com web site and our new store concept,” says Last Call senior vice president and managing director Tom Lind. “The studio stores will offer branded, current season, on-trend product direct from the market at a great discount at an in-town location; and the e-commerce site will provide the same experience with a combination of product from our post-season merchandise from Neiman Marcus.com and Bergdorf Goodman.com as well as our off-price merchandise we have sourced specifically for Last Call.”
The new web site features a private sale section called Fashion Dash. With Fashion Dash, registered shoppers will be offered limited time and “just in” sales on select merchandise, Neiman Marcus says. The first two Last Call Studio stores will open next month in Rockville, MD, and Paramus, NJ. There is already a prototype store in Dallas. “This new multichannel environment for Last Call offers another dimension for our customers and fills a white space in the retail category,” says Wanda Gierhart, Neiman Marcus chief marketing officer.
For the 2010 fiscal year ended July 31 for Neiman Marcus, No. 41 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, reported:
- Web sales grew about 10.6% to $574.1 million from $519 million in fiscal 2009. Total sales increased about 1.4% to $3.69 billion from $3.64 billion in fiscal 2009.
- Specialty retail sales increased year over year 0.7% to $3.01 billion from $2.99 billion.
- Direct market sales, which include catalog and web, increased 4.6% to $682 million from $652 million.
- Comparable-store sales, which Neiman Marcus calls comparable revenue, declined 0.1%.