Roses filed for bankruptcy protection in , restructured to fewer than stores, and sold to Variety in They also gained a large distribution center and office space in low-cost Henderson, which is 40 miles northeast of Durham. Twenty years later, the company has Roses and Roses Express stores, which tend to be from 15, square feet to 50, square feet, Maxways and 51 Super 10s.
About 8, people work for the company, including about at the Henderson distribution center and at the company headquarters. Growth at Roses has come by converting to an everyday low-price strategy and by taking over sites abandoned by other retailers.
The pricing change, coupled with reduced advertising, cut revenue but boosted profits, Pope says. Costs are contained as Variety operates its own trucking and construction divisions. As for abandoned sites, Roses has jumped in as other retailers retrench. For decades, Variety stores mostly served small towns, and one of the most recent Roses openings was in Nashville, Ga. But the company also operates in bigger cities including Baltimore, Birmingham, Charlotte and Columbus, Ohio, with new stores planned for Atlanta, Greensboro and Memphis.
Pope-funded advocacy groups oppose increasing the minimum wage, a hot topic among retailers. Walmart and others have boosted compensation in recent years. The west Charlotte Roses is in a strip shopping center that includes a Value Village resale store and a Grifols plasma-donation center. Assistant manager Tim Mitchell asks if I need assistance as I push a cart through the aisles. Pope, who is 61 and has no children working in the business, is happy to grow at a measured pace.
In January, the company hired former Ross Stores executive Mark Katz as its general merchandise manager. In March, Variety opened a distribution center in Newnan, Ga. Reflecting its deliberate approach, Variety studied adding a second center for eight years, Pope says. The employee Georgia location will facilitate more growth in the Deep South. A third center, probably in east Texas, may be added in three to five years as the company enters the Lone Star State, Pope says.
Francis De Luca uses the same term to describe Pope. Shortly after Roberts took the budget job, Pope gave him a memo related to an issue that involved arcane state law dating to the early s.
Forgot your password? Lost your password? Please enter your email address. You will receive mail with link to set new password. By David Mildenberg. In July Share this story: Facebook 74 Twitter LinkedIn. Kathryn Galloway. David Mildenberg. David Mildenberg is editor of Business North Carolina.
Reach him at dmildenberg businessnc. Contact us:. In Variety added the Super Dollar Stores, which relied on advertised sales to bring in customers. Many of Pope's other stores pursued a similar strategy, but again the retail landscape was changing, forcing Pope to adjust once more. The legal requirement that retailers abide by the "manufacturer's suggested retail price" had started to be discarded in many states during the s.
As a result, the large chains could use their economies of scale and purchasing power to buy and sell merchandise at a discount, putting the squeeze on smaller players. After acquiring 55 P. Rose's names. But the company was under pressure from discounters such as Wal-Mart which were sweeping across the South.
The old formula of heavily advertising loss leader items at or below cost in the hope that customers would also buy profitable items as well was no longer working, forcing Pope to close stores in the wake of decreasing sales. Pope read in a trade journal about a California merchant who was taking a different approach, giving up on sales and instead offering all items at or below an everyday threshold price.
After brought a 10 percent drop in sales for Variety, he decided to try out the new formula on 15 failing stores that he would have to close if they did not turn around soon. The experiment worked and over the next few years Pope applied the concept to other stores. To gain an edge he ceased advertising altogether, relying on the consistent pricing approach to bring back customers.
Using different formats, and by a willingness to close stores that could not be saved, Variety was able to rebound from the lean years of the mids and continue to expand through acquisitions, picking up the pieces of retailers who proved less adept at changing gears. A year later Variety added 33 Maxway stores, acquired from another company in Chapter The units, mostly located in North Carolina, Georgia, and South Carolina, were then converted to an everyday low-price format.
In Variety acquired 60 Bargain Town stores, almost all of which were located in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi. By Variety owned about stores, although that number fluctuated as Pope continued to show no hesitancy in shutting down struggling units.
Pope employed a number of relatives, including son John Pope, Jr. The former retired from the business in to concentrate on "his personal finances and his golf game," according to the father. John, Jr. He also was devoted to Republican politics, serving as a state representative from to before losing his bid to become North Carolina's lieutenant governor. He also chaired the conservative John Locke Foundation, a Raleigh organization he helped to found, and which the Pope family helped to fund.
It was somewhat ironic that a couple of years later he would meet a drug saleswoman at a Christmas party who was an active Democrat and marry her, a situation that would prove nettlesome down the road. His younger brother Art was also a lawyer, serving as Variety's legal counsel and chief negotiator. He harbored no illusions that he possessed the retail instincts of his father, who despite his mounting years remained very much in charge of the company. Our mission is to provide our customer the very best values and quality merchandise at "Everyday Low Prices.
In Variety acquired Rose's Stores Inc. Rose's variety stores it bought 20 years earlier—another example of Pope picking the bones of a less flexible retailer. Rose's had an even longer history than Variety, its origins dating to when Paul Rose opened a general store in North Carolina's Henderson County. Rose built up a chain of dime stores and in began opening large discount stores, on which it eventually elected to focus, selling the smaller formats to Variety in the s.
By the chain totaled stores, but more than half were in markets occupied by giant competitors Kmart and Wal-Mart. Moreover, management had lost its edge and failed to keep pace with current business practices, was slow to computerize the accounts, and even failed to adopt other standard industry money-saving techniques.
After the last of the Rose family left in , a new management team, headed by a former Target executive, was unable to turn around the chain and compete against Wal-Mart large-format stores by concentrating on cheap clothing and beauty and health supplies.
The company was forced to enter Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in , and when it emerged in the chain had been cut in half to units. That and a second offer were rejected, and it appeared that Rose's faced liquidation.
Then Art Pope persuaded his father to make one more attempt. Variety quickly imposed its own operating strategy on Rose's, applying the everyday pricing strategy and dramatically cutting back on the advertising budget. Instead of producing a circular every week, the chain now offered a monthly advertising piece. Previous management had been ready to make some of the same changes, but the chain carried too much debt and its poor reputation made suppliers wary to ship merchandise to the stores.
No such fears existed with Variety, which was not hindered by the fear of creditors as it worked to turn around Rose's. Although sales fell off, Variety was able to squeeze a profit from Rose's in the first year.
John Pope continued to run his collection of retail stores well into his 70s, converting some to new smaller express formats while continuing to show no reluctance about closing stores. Since the s it was estimated that he had closed about stores, or about the same number as Variety operated in Because Variety was guarded about its business, it was uncertain if Pope's dream was on pace.
Pope would, however, outlive his eldest son, John, Jr.
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