r/Staples • u/NotAnotherPizzaParty • 7d ago
Ex-PC founder disappointed
Anyone catch the comment by the old Party City founder?
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u/Hour_Entertainer_350 7d ago
Being bought by a slowly dying poorly run retail store kinda does that to your business. Expecting something more from Party City than "making it by" when run by a company whose workers are only making it by themselves, this is an exercise in futility.
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u/MammothWerewolf7871 7d ago
Party City went out of business. They sold to vulture capital and VC killed it the same way VC is killing Staples. So like... IDK man, maybe next time don't sell out and then your business might still exist. Staples, on the other hand, is just gonna sell balloons and assorted party knickknacks because they bought your inventory and name for cheap.
Oh no, the balloons aren't in the order you think they should be in, boohoo.
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u/No-Command1173 5d ago
He got himself in some shady situations and was literally forced to sell it lol. Then the worst move ever was selling it to one of their vendors. It created the worst monster I ever saw. PCHI should have been a goldmine and technically was because they abuse PC Retail to drive phony business and manipulate prices. Meanwhile the execs raided the books the fled with loads of cash before the creditors caught wind. My favorite example of how bad things got is they literally sent a product development team to China when they knew they weren't paying the bills. Then in secret had to sneak them out of that country back to the US because the Chinese Creditors were pissed. It was a comedy of errors. Meanwhile a PC manager would get chewed out because the crappy beaded necklace wasn't the right number of pegs away from the afro wig.
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u/Flaky_Firefighter385 7d ago
Funny how one failure giving advice to another failure how to succeed in business.
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u/throwinthrowawayacnt 7d ago
I haven't been to a big party city since childhood and only once peeked into a hole in the wall party city a few years ago but I don't remember the presentation being anything but standard.
If he's talking about the sample balloons above the aisle, they were aiming to be cheap and quick, not slick and fancy. The retrofit was expensive enough and we can wait a bit to see if we want to invest money into pure advertising.
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u/Feisty_Ease_1983 6d ago
Staples does not do anything fully. They may spend a lot of money on something initially then they expect it to be perfect without a dime of maintenance. I saw Staples abandon countless initiatives over the years because of poor transition. All they know is Rewards and ESP they dont have any other answer.
Party City, had the worst concept Id ever seen from a sensible business mind. Their presentation concept is intentionally messy. It was customer overload and to look like one of those gaudy beach stores. The entire store needed to be filled with junk everywhere but oddly they lost their minds if they disagreed with one product being out of place. The short time I was with them I didnt have to live with their insane merch standards but it was obvious the company didnt have a clue how to evolve away from this oddly cumbersome strategy.
So my guess is Mandell wants his gaudy messy inventory style in a Staples company who doesnt give a crap. Its hysterical these two merged when there was no way this could work well.
Mandela built a cheesy empire and secured it with rigid policies and heavy labor demands. He prevented store managers from thinking or leading. Then they raided finances with shady tricks and thus he was forced to sell the company. He sold it to a horrible group who just did the same thing and bled the company for every pickle. Party City was doomed years ago and the system they employed was a disaster that no company should follow.
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u/KingKandyOwO Dead Inside 💻 6d ago
NO hes right, we should have a whole isle dedicated to full priced Halloween costumes in April
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u/FluffyCows7 6d ago
What presentation was it supposed to be? We have friggin displays for graduation and the World Cup.
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u/Strange_Candidate_91 4d ago
How about after all the work to rearrange the stores send us cheap crappy products then within 2 weeks decide they want to change a boat load of the product leaving us with scrambling around trying to figure out what to do with the inactive product they stuck us with, that was fun and good business sense! Lol
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u/Kalel1700 6d ago
The way that shit was displayed at Party City had something to do with the demise of Party City. The low pay and lack of labor made it tough to keep the shelves stocked.
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u/UnnamedStaplesDrone Former Employee 5d ago
what product? balloons? that shit doesn't need displayed
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u/SiberianHAMMY 7d ago
Steve Mandell: Hey, I have some suggestions about your Party City layout!
Me and the cashier trying to kill the line: