By Glenn Scott
Advertiser Staff Writer
It was definitely not just another shopping day at Liberty House yesterday.
Customers and salesclerks alike volunteered that they could sense a change inside the company’s flagship store at Ala Moana Center on the first day after the longtime retailer emerged from almost three years of bankruptcy proceedings.
"The employees are really nice today," observed customer Shani Wong of Honolulu as she left the store with a shoebox under her arm. "It seems like they’re kind of relieved. There is a lot less stress in the air."
Clearly, the end of uncertainty was the theme yesterday for workers who, a day earlier, had received a congratulatory, forward-looking note from company President John Monahan. It began, "It is finally over!"
Pauline Baker, a Liberty House employee for 28 years, stood at the Clinique cosmetic counter with a ready smile. Baker said the process had sometimes seemed like a media event that didn’t affect day-to-day events inside the store. But, she conceded, the pressure of not knowing the store’s future did at times translate into up days and down days.
"We just tried to maintain our hopes and spirits," she said. "It’s finally here. It’s great."
Bankruptcy, an unusually public process in the strategic world of retailing, can play with the psychology of customers as well as employees, explained Sid Doolittle, a principal in the Chicago-based retail consulting firm McMillan-Doolittle and a longtime former Montgomery Ward executive.
"Retailers have a tendency to suffer a loss of favor when they have been in a bankruptcy situation," he explained. "And shoppers become discouraged and move on to other places."
In the case of Liberty House, though, customer loyalty to the locally based, 151-year-old business was one of the elements that Monahan cited for pulling the company through. He said yesterday that the enduring customer support reflected elements of island spirit and identity in ways that troubled retailers may not enjoy in most Mainland markets.
"Aloha is defined in many different ways," Monahan said. "But we felt it from our customers."
Indeed, shopper Adele Spires of Pearl City knew the whole story yesterday morning as she entered on the second floor. She knew the store was back on its feet, free from its legal constraints, and she was glad, if not a little proud.
"Every time we needed to buy a gift," she said, "I always said let’s go to Liberty House to help them out."
Glenn Scott can be reached by phone at 525-8064, or by email at gscott@honoluluadvertiser.com
[back to top] |
