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The Joseph A. Banks (JOSB) Machine!

June 17, 2007 | About:
The Joseph A. Banks (JOSB) selling machine is kicking on all cylinders - yesterday’s quarterly numbers were proof of that.

My gripe (and Herb agrees) with the management is that they decided that no Q&A is needed after the quarterly conference call. I completely understand why the company’s management may decide to spend their time on a more productive endeavor than answering sell side analysts’ questions which most of the time have little to do with the company’s long-term future, but zero in on minute, often irrelevant short-term details. That being said, management should have done a better job communicating to the Street the change in Q&A practice.

JOSB’s marketing strategy is the weakest link in its business model. It is extremely short-term oriented and not about long-term brand building. I’d argue that it cheapens its brand. Where Men’s Warehouse’s (MW) “I guarantee it” commercials tell you about product quality and a pleasant shopping experience (long-term brand building strategy), JOSB commercials sound like it’s a cheap car dealership that you’d expect to see in the deep suburbs of nowhere land, with a very annoying voice that tells you something along the lines of, “Only this Tuesday, the whole store is 50% off!” But don’t worry, if you missed this Tuesday special, there are other days of the week; Wednesday, Thursday… you get the point. Yesterday, while reading JOSB’s latest 10Q, I heard the commercial at least three times on CNBC. This short-term driven marketing strategy is responsible for the volatility of same store sales.

About the author:

Vitaliy Katsenelson is Director of Research at Investment Management Associates and teaches at the University of Colorado. To read more of his articles visit www.ContrarianEdge.com . His book Active Value Investing was published by John Wiley & Sons in September 2007.

Visit Vitaliy Katsenelson's Website

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Rating: 1.8/5 (6 votes)

Comments

kfh227
Kfh227 premium member - 6 years ago
Doesn't the Q&A act as a sort of form of checks and balances? Asking how numbers were arrived at, etc ...

I have to admit though. I don't listen to CCs of companies I own anymore for the reason you mentioned. I do thumb through the annual report each years though. Even those are of little value to me these days though.
vooch
Vooch - 6 years ago
If the company is unwilling to do Q&A after the conference call, sell the stock.

- Vooch
valuefan
Valuefan premium member - 5 years ago
I haven't looked at the fundamentals for JOSB, but I really hate the whole sale thing.
I think it was the head of FD that said people are getting wise to the sales, and hate to
buy any other time because they feel they are getting ripped off when the item is not on
sale. ETH did away with sales a while ago, and Macy's is trying to back off it.

I love shopping at WMT, because if I see something I don't have to worry about whether
I should wait till next week when it might be on sale to buy. I don't want to bother with
that anymore.

I think that is one reason TJX stores are doing so well. You can buy the item when you see
without worrying that it might be cheaper next week. Maybe I am just cheap...

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