They Were Merchants

A couple of time-related apologies to start. First, I should have taken note of the Wall Street Journal review that triggered this entry when it was published in October. Second, this installment of CenlaFuture will of necessity be more nostalgic than I would prefer.

When I moved to Little Rock, Arkansas with my parents in 1950, my father went to work for a local department store named Pfeifer's. This family-owned operation had three locations, all on Main Street downtown. There were Pfeifer's, Pfeifer's Home Center, and Pfeifer's Bargain Basement. Remarkably, there were two other locally-owned department stores downtown: Blass's and M.M. Cohn's. Sear's and Penney's also had substantial operations.

Inevitably, people of a certain age (say, around mine or older) have warm feelings for operations like these. They were full-service, well-merchandised, rooted in their communities and customer-centric. Customers were likely to know the personnel who served them without having to check name tags. I can remember my mother saying, "Let's walk over to the bargain basement and get you a pair of jeans from Ms. Cotton." Yes, Ms. Jean Cotton whom I have not seen for more than fifty years and still remember fondly.

My Cenla readers should now be recalling their own favorite stores, personnel and retail experiences. I mean the company no harm when I predict that these memories are not likely to have occurred in Dillard's or any of the other behemoth retailers that swept through the nation. It was a different time, a different culture, and a much better shopping experience.

When I moved to Baton Rouge in 1973, the store that most fully embodied these principles was Goudchaux's, a full-service department store owned and operated by the Sternberg family. The main store was near downtown, a mammoth and rambling affair that had been built in increments. In 1986, it was cited in "Ripley's Believe It or Not" as the world's longest department store (976 feet, to be exact). Large as it was, it was almost impossible to be there as a customer and not encounter Hans or Josef Sternberg walking the floor and making sure that all was well.

In the grand retail tradition, Goudchaux's carried a wide variety of merchandise and their own accounts. It seemed that everyone I met had a Goudchaux's charge card. There was a men's suit salesman who would always tell me about sales events ahead of time, thereby helping me survive being the victim of sartorial tastes that far exceeded my budget. I never was involved in nor did I witness a disagreement about returns or repairs on items purchased at Goudchaux's. The Sternberg's simply made sure that the customer walked out happy...every single time. With a genius marketing flair, they distinguished themselves from the similarly named New Orleans store (Godchaux's) by highlighting the "u" and creating a slogan that said, "Goudchaux's--where the difference is U."

Now my friends at the Louisiana State University Press (even with a recessionary budget) have published We Were Merchants by Hans J. Sternberg, with James Shelledy. Replete with photographs, the book tells the story of the firm beginning with Erich and Lea Sternberg and their flight from Nazi Germany. They settled with their two sons and daughter in Baton Rouge and bought the then much smaller Goudchaux's store.

The Wall Street Journal has published a warm and respectful review of We Were Merchants. In addition to praising the story of the Sternberg family, the Journal says the book "...also yields some simple but oft-forgotten truths about what makes great brands, and some enduring lessons for retailers." The book is available from your high-quality local bookseller or, should you not be able to find one of those, via Amazon or barnesandnoble.com, or directly from the LSU Press.

The kind of service that is chronicled in We Were Merchants does not always survive the process of mass merchandising. Barnes and Noble stores seem to do a good job of creating a service culture. Certain online retailers (Zappo's, notably) also can make a customer happy to spend money. The lessons of the book are still valid, even as they are harder to apply.

As I write this on Thanksgiving eve, I am thankful to have shopped with the Sternberg's, happy to have experienced Pfeifer's, Blass's and Cohn's as a child. Of course, I am also thankful to have watched my home state of Arkansas be home to the most successful retailer of our time: Wal-Mart.

As a tireless promoter of Cenla-based businesses, I am also hopeful that the next great American retailer is among my readers.