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3% comp sales growth. Uh, Bloomingdales. Uh, with your old job, which is to run their phenomenal 10% comp sales growth and the turnaround that you've been trying to execute for the Macy's brand seems to be really taking hold. Uh, 12.6 1.5% growth there. And I think if you just take the stores that you've remodeled, you're over 2% correct. Uh, this is now, what, four straight quarters of this? This is four straight quarters of growth, five quarters of beating our guidance. Uh, 10.2% growth. You mentioned at Bloomingdales 2.4% growth at the reimagined stores. We feel like we are on the curve of beginning to transform the Macy's, Inc. portfolio company.
The conversation was a bit different even a year ago. I mean, people were writing your obituary in the Macy's obituary. There was writing the department store obituary. Is this turnaround just about a better experience in the stores, or is it about something different that we're not really picking up on? Well, I never bought into the extinction of department stores. I think it's bad. Stores don't have a place in the retail ecosystem. Sometimes they can survive longer than they should. Great stores people love.
People love Harrods. They love Selfridges. They love their department stores. We are a departments where we do a really good job. When we do, we get credit from the consumer. When we don't, we don't get credit from the consumer. So I really just took it internally and challenged our team to say, let's satisfy the customer. Let's put people back in the stores, let's let's update the product mix. Let's do a little storytelling on the visuals. How about some help in the fitting room where the customer is craving support once she's, you know, taking her clothes off and is looking to figure out what
size is going to work for her? Uh, so customers seem to be a little bit more excited about what's going on. I am curious about, uh, the brands of vendors, uh, that the things you sell there. Are they also excited? I mean, are you seeing, uh, more interest, uh, from brands that maybe had left, uh, the Macy's ecosystem in the past and maybe are knocking back on your door? Yeah, we've talked about new brands coming in. Donna Karan, Donna Karan Weekend Rotha is new to both Macy's and Bloomingdales.
The addition of Ted Baker in theory and Reese Bloomingdales certainly big luxury expansion. So I think the brands we're looking to see. Are you ready to take care of the business? Will you be accretive to my brand positioning? Will you help me to reach customers I can't reach without your support, and I think the team has done a good job of explaining that. Macy's 38 million active customers. That is not easy to buy in the media market. So how do we make sure that we're presenting our brand in the right way, so that we're capturing new customers that maybe were the first time that they're learning about our brand, and that we're proud of the level of
business we do. I am curious that one of the big criticisms of your bold new chapter, your turnaround plan, is that you're basically shrinking the idea that you're leaning too heavily on Bloomingdales, which is obviously a success story, and there are a lot of people that want to know sort of is this sort of a big structural shift for you with regards to what Macy's Inc. overall is going to be, is it going to be weighted more towards luxury and Bloomingdales, or is it going to be the complete sort of ecosystem? Macy's, Bloomingdales and Bloomberg Quicktake. This is a three part strategy from the very beginning. The first chapter of Bold New Chapter
was Strengthen and Reimagine Macy's. And while we had to close some stores, we still have a few more stores to close. The primary focus was reimagining stores. I think when you and I talked the last time, I said, a strategy is not a strategy. If it's just about closing under productive stores or monetizing assets. The strategy is making it better for the consumers. So we put more people in the stores, we added more inventory, we brought in new brands, we made the website more inspirational. But the second part of the chapter is to grow Bloomingdales, because why wouldn't we?
We own Bloomingdales. It's a great brand and has so much potential. Organic potential, physical potential, digital potential. And then the third piece of the strategy was to make sure that we were operating efficiently and effectively in serving the customer. So I'm proud of the fact that the supply chain team where in-stock better. We're flowing inventory to the customer faster. We're having less issues with the consumer. That's why our net promoter scores, how we measure customer service, are going up at Bloomingdales Growth. There are some people that said, certainly in the most recent quarters has benefited partly, uh, from, uh, let's just say the relative absence of
Saks global Neiman Marcus Bergdorf, uh, Saks, uh, they're in bankruptcy proceedings. They are expected to come out sometime this year. And I've spoken with their CEO, and he's got some pretty ambitious plans for what he thinks Saks can be. Does that potential increase in competition? Where are you with regards to Bloomingdales trajectory? No, I'm focused on Bloomingdales. I'm focused on Olivier. Do you want his team? You never, you know, go into Saks. Oh, I, I certainly shopped the competition, but I'm focused on what we do. You know, I learned a long time ago, if you depend on other people failing for you to succeed, you're not going to get
very far. Our focus is on delivering a great experience for the Bloomingdale's customer. You and I could go over and walk 59 straight across the street from this great building and see new brands, great people, great visuals, inspiring marketing. 40 carats yogurt. There's so much interest within the Bloomingdales brand. Does competitive missteps help Bloomingdales? Yeah, of course. But if Bloomingdales wasn't running a heck, it wasn't healthy. And this strategy started a number of years ago as we added new brands, as we declared our right and reason for being at our 150th anniversary in 2022. We said we can do better.
Yeah. I also just saw as a personal note, you know, they had a son life pop up there, by the way. You need to get that back. It was only temporary. Um, and all series. I do want to ask you, uh, about just the consumer overall. I mean, it's one thing to say. Okay, your business is doing great. There are certain things you control. You don't necessarily control the economy. Uh, gas prices are significantly higher than where they were three months ago.
Uh, most economists don't think they're coming down anytime soon. You already had a consumer, as you have characterized in the past, as being kind of a K shaped or even E shaped economy here. Do you see the state of the US consumer improving anytime soon? I think the consumer is going to continue to buy, uh, rewards and, uh, things that they can enjoy. Find a way to escape. We talk about retail escapism or retail therapy and the gas prices being higher is not helpful to the business. There's no question. But it's not an excuse to not do business.
Every single day we are doing business at Macy's and Bloomingdales in Blue Mercury. How much business? How do we take business from the competition? How do we inspire you to find things? So if we have a new brand in sunglasses, if we have a new, uh, Hoka sneaker, if we have a new pair of page denim jeans, there's a reason for you to buy. And by the way, we're actually accessible luxury. We are in categories that for the most part, our core customer can buy multiple times without putting a dent in their wallet. Just a reminder for our Bloomberg audiences on television and radio, speaking right now with Tony Spring, the
CEO of Macy's Inc. And with regards to that, though, Tony. Um, are you able to hold a price because part of the success of Macy's isn't just the comp sales growth, but it's also been on the bottom line as well. Uh, to avoid having to heavily discount if we are indeed seeing economic pressures out there. Well, I think it's our job to manage the bottom line. You know, it starts with first the top line, delivering a great experience for the consumer. If we have the right brands, if we don't go over by the inventory, we're going to be fine on the bottom line. Last year we had to navigate the, uh, uncertainty of tariffs and what country we were going to make products and how we're going to adjust orders, how much
of the cost was going to be shared by the vendors versus shared by Macy's versus shared by the customer? This year, we can be focused on taking care of the customer. This year, we can be focused on what are going to be the impacts of some of the macro and geopolitical issues. But you bring up tariffs. I mean, I thought the tariff thing was behind us. And then yesterday we had news here on Bloomberg that the Trump administration is kind of helping. But it's not last year's tariffs. And I don't like tariffs in general as a policy. But we accept what happens there. Not the uh higher rates and an inconsistency inconsistencies country by country. You had people moving production from
China to Vietnam and back to China again. So that's not going on this year. How much, uh, opportunity cost did we lose last year because we weren't focused on the consumer, because we weren't focused on taking care of the customer. I'm excited about the opportunities this year as I walked through the Father's Day assortment. We look terrific. I looked at the World Cup assortment. We got lots of fun jerseys and we got the Knicks in the playoffs. So there's so much opportunity for us to do business and play into fandom. I think that exists in every family. Are you a next fan? I am a fan. Okay. Well congrats.
I'm a fan, but I still wish you the best here. Um, I am curious though, uh, recently. And I know it's a small investment, but we had the disclosure from Berkshire Hathaway. That they had taken a stake in Macy's a relatively small second, but it was significant because it was, I believe, the first, uh, stake that they've taken in a department store in decades. Um, what does that say to you? Not just with what Berkshire and Warren Buffett might be doing, but just overall, the confidence that maybe might finally be returning to Macy's, Inc. as a stock. My father used to call it a shot in the arm. And we all need them every once in a
while. We love all of our investors. I think Berkshire just has a wonderful reputation of believing and investing for the long term, and I think it's a proof to our team that doing the right things, even if you don't see the immediate success, they will be beneficial over time as long as you're honest with yourself. I have an adage about the garden. Sometimes you plant seeds and you want to go pick the fruit. It doesn't work that way. If you believe in what you're doing, you have to take the time. You got to water, you got to till the soil. Some things we do are going to take a little bit of time. I believe the strategy is the right strategy for Macy's, Inc.
You came into this job as CEO of Macy's, Inc. with this bold new chapter is a three year plan. This is basically the third year. Uh, I am curious if you can look ahead year 4 or 5 and beyond and maybe articulate what you think that next chapter, if you will, to use the, uh, the analogy might actually look like, yeah, I think it's going to include, uh, more brands. It's going to include more reimagined stores for Macy's. It's going to include, uh, new ways of incorporating, uh, AI into powering a bold new chapter so that we're able to be ahead of the consumer and be able to deliver more of what he or she are looking for.
I think it's going to be that continued expansion of Bloomingdale's, because with only 14 of the top 50, uh, in the country, there is plenty of expansion potential for Bloomingdales. And it's going to be making sure that we continue to stay focused on the customer, because sometimes when you get distracted by, uh, a problem, uh, an opportunity outside of the business, you stop taking care of the people that make the everyday business happen, which is the consumer.
