What makes a store succeed in 2020?

I have criteria, but I can't guarantee they're the right ones.

I cannot count the number of times I’ve had the same conversation with my mom.

It usually comes after walking through an empty mall (this is pre-coronavirus times) or when a salesperson directs us to find something online.

“Will stores go away?” My mom will ask. “Will all shopping be online?”

We’ve all seen the number of stores that have closed since the pandemic—and before it. We know that brick-and-mortar retail isn’t exactly thriving. Everyone’s always wondering: Who will be next on the chopping block? But it’s the wrong question. Our fascination should not be with who isn’t doing well, but who is.

My tentative theory is that our shopping habits have changed, but not in the way many of us might imagine. It’s not so much a battle of online versus in-store. It’s a battle of our desires: big box versus locally-owned, broad versus niche, fast fashion versus sustainable and, finally and perhaps most importantly, what we perceive as corporate versus what we perceive as authentic.

Now before you go accusing me of word salad, I promise I have a point here. Because here are two concepts in the past few years that are, dare I say it, thriving: Everlane and T.J. Maxx.

To succeed in this New Economy, you don’t have to meet all of my criteria—you just have to meet some of them. Let’s take Everlane. The brand offers sustainability, authenticity and fits into a niche. For example, when I asked my mom to buy me something from Everlane for my birthday, she scoffed. “They’re just overpriced basics!”

She has a point. Go to Everlane’s website, and the whole thing oozes simplicity and optimization. (I am finally getting around to reading Jia Tolentino’s “Trick Mirror,” so of course I’m trying to work ‘optimizing’ into everything I write.)

Everlane’s clothes aren’t particularly exciting. How can you get ecstatic about Dad sneakers, a simple pair of jeans or a plain fleece sweatshirt?

And yet—that’s precisely why we get excited. First, the brand lauds itself as sustainable and is relatively transparent about their clothes production, which gives it a plus in the feel-good millennial book. And they are not a one-stop shop, meaning that you might be able to buy your basics there, but you’ll never find a stunning dress for a cocktail party or statement heels. That’s another plus.

I’m convinced the backlash to the one-place-fits-all shop is a reaction to big department stores and (maybe) Amazon. We don’t want to buy our jeans, our shirts, our shoes, our fancy dresses from the same store, the way we might have from Bloomingdale’s or Macy’s not that long ago. At Everlane, you stock up on your high-quality, ethically-sourced basics, optimizing your life to give you more time to get the fancy, exciting things you really want.

When I think of Everlane, which is fairly often, I think of a linen or clean-laundry-scented candle. The scent is so stunningly simple, so maddeningly familiar and unspecial, that its very ordinariness makes it unique and comforting. Even, dare I say it, beautiful.

I’m not sure how to write about the Holy Grail that is TJ Maxx in a way that fully captures my unadulterated love for it.

So instead, let me start with this fun fact from a Wall Street Journal article (which I’m linking from a Fox News post, sorry, because I’m paywalled out of WSJ). TJX, the parent company of TJ Maxx, Marshalls and home-wellness bastion HomeGoods, gets only TWO PERCENT of their sales from e-commerce, or online purchases. TWO PERCENT!

And lest you think that means TJX will go the way of the dinosaur in a few years, look no further than their sales numbers. Even though TJX stores had an expected revenue loss when stores closed to COVID-19, they were already seeing higher sales than this time last year once stores began reopening in late May, according to a comment their CEO made to investors. More importantly, the company ended the second quarter (of 2020!) with $6.6 billion in cash. That sounds pretty good to me.

But you don’t read this newsletter for financial advice. Instead, you, like me, may wonder: What is it about TJX stores that so capture people? The WSJ article gives a good primer on what the CEO dubs the ‘treasure hunt’ experience.

“The company has long catered to shoppers who enjoy the "treasure hunt" experience of browsing aisles of constantly changing merchandise, Mr. Herrman said. "In today's environment, we believe this kind of shopping experience can serve as a break in the day, and as some 'Me time' for our customers, and in the future will continue to be a major draw for consumers to our stores," he said.

The point is that, you never know what you might find at TJ Maxx, and that’s the fun of it. The fact that my mom and I feel the need to check the merchandise at TJ Maxx or Marshall’s once or twice a week just to make sure we’ve missed something? It definitely borders on addiction, but it’s also a need to make sure we didn’t miss a treasure.

The reason that works is because, on enough occasions, we have actually found treasure. We know it can happen. So we wait for it to happen again.

As small evidence: In the last year at TJ Maxx, I’ve found a $5 Splendid dress that I now wear to virtual work meetings, a $20 Vineyard Vines fleece, a $35 Tory Sport jacket, a Johnny Was velvet dress I wore to a pre-COVID wedding (that’s a price I can’t remember) and a few pairs of Madewell and Free People jeans that were under $15. And those are only some of my best finds!

But the online shopping experience is truly abysmal. Because some brands are, I hypothesize, too embarrassed to list their clothes online through TJX stores, you can’t actually search by brand (say, Free People or Tory Burch). Instead, when you do, this screen pops up.

Sifting through the clothes online mirrors the in-store experience, but without the high of a possible treasure awaiting you. So it makes perfect sense that the store gets so little of their sales online. The experience is lacking.

So where do TJX stores fit into my criteria? Well, they’re certainly not local, and they’re not exactly sustainable. You could only argue they’re sustainable because they make sure already-produced clothes have a home. But they still sell primarily fast fashion.

What they are is authentic and niche. They are the opposite of Everlane. You don’t go to TJ Maxx to find basics — you might find them there, but since you don’t know what you’ll find, it’s not the place you’d take your daughter to search for the perfect white T-shirt or jeans or a bra. If you want multiple options of the same type of clothing, this is not your place.

And TJ Maxx is authentic in the truest sense of the word. They’re offering you unvarnished retail. Nothing is packaged in such a way that it calls to you, but that’s exactly why it calls to you!

Do you agree with my criteria? Are you a Maxxinista? Let me know, and see you all next week!

<3, Elizabeth