I worked for the Office of Management and Budget in the White House, on nuclear energy policy. But I decided it would be much more fun to have a specialty food store, so I left Washington D.C. and moved to the Hamptons. And how glad I am that I did!
As goods become more standardized – and mass production has that effect, standardizing product – the distinguishing factor between one store and another is going to be how skillful stores are in satisfying customers and making it a pleasant experience instead of a hostile experience.
My mother was very good at encouraging me to dress however I wanted to dress. My sisters would sometimes think, ‘Oh my God, you let her buy that fuzzy leopard coat at that vintage store?’ I thought, of course, I looked like Audrey Hepburn.
Because people see violence on the movie screen, they’re not going to go out and hold up a liquor store and kill somebody. It really doesn’t correlate.
My grandmother was divorced, and she had 10 children herself. She never finished high school. She started selling lace on the side of the road and then grew that into a multimillion-dollar business – a retail store selling mostly furniture and appliances.
The name of my ailment was longing, and it was not cured till I finally went to the department store and counted out the money in small coins before the dismayed clerk. When I came to the house, I held up the instrument before the eyes of the astonished household.
Typically you see the home office think up some great program but doesn’t think through implementation at the store level.
I’m such an impulse buyer. I once went into a pet store for dog food and left with a fish tank and five fish. And yes, of course I forgot to buy dog food.
Customers want high-quality food, good service, and good store experience, and most retailers fail to deliver on those.
There’s a deep-freeze of sorts for all good intentions – a place that you store your plans to make changes in your life when you know you’re not going to make them at all.
When you’re invested in your own business, you’re going to run it better. When people are financially responsible for whether their store succeeds, they’re going to have that kind of entrepreneurial spirit that’s harder to get if headquarters is running things.
When I’m doing a store in a country, I always like to consider the concept of the country and the city. Ask what are the clothes of the city, what does this city represent for me?
Our hunting areas are the grocery store.
I have so many pairs of riding pants that are from the store at the stables in Burbank where you can go ride your horse at. I don’t ride a horse, but I do wear the pants! I love them!
Pack snacks. Food prices once you pass through airport security or within blocks of a major tourist attraction can be double the price. Pack travel-friendly snacks or visit a grocery store in the destination you are visiting to get a better price.
I’m in the Apple store on Regent Street far too much; I’m obsessed by whatever the latest Apple gadget is. For clothes, I love to shop in Liam Gallagher’s shop Pretty Green on Carnaby Street, or Cult Clothing in Crouch End, for Original Penguin and G-Star.
I used to go to the comic store all the time. I was into comic cards, which are essentially baseball cards for comic book heroes. They have these cool stats on the back. I had collections of these things. I still have a lot of my collection at home.
The next MVP of the Super Bowl is just as likely to have been a full-time grocery store bagger last year as a Heisman Trophy winner.
By the time I reached high school my father’s grocery store had made our life adequately comfortable and I was able to choose, without any practical encumbrances, the subjects that I wanted to pursue in college.
My curiosity and love for food started at an early age. My mother was a working mom, so I learned to whip up sweet and savory food using everyday pantry and grocery store ingredients that required little supervision.
I went to a general store but they wouldn’t let me buy anything specific.
Once you’ve reached the point where you can pay rent, you can go to the vet and you can go to the grocery store, after that point it’s all the same. I don’t have the appetite for a decadent lifestyle.
My mother did literally hitchhike barefoot to the country store.
There was this thing written that I had gone into a candle store, and my hair went up in flames because of all the hair spray. First of all, I never have hair spray in my hair, and I’ve never even heard of this store, and my hair has never been burned.
Going out into the world, I do feel like a kid in a candy store.
The biggest thing you can do is understand that every time you’re going to the grocery store, you’re voting with your dollars. Support your farmers’ market. Support local food. Really learn to cook.
There’s a store in my neighborhood called Futon World. I like that name, ‘Futon World.’ Makes me think of a magical place that gets less and less comfortable over time.
We must permeate the stores with creativity and offer service when and to the degree the customer wants it. Of course, it means offering all the omni bells and whistles they want, like in-store pickup, same-day delivery, and mobile point of sale, and all of this must be done every hour of every day the store is open.
I hate when people have food in their mouths and they don’t swallow before they talk. Like, they store it in their cheek when they talk to you. It drives me nuts.
Always be prepared if someone asks you what you want for Christmas. Give brand names, the store that sells the merchandise, and, if possible, exact model numbers so they can’t go wrong. Be the type who’s impossible to buy for, so they have to get what you want.
I believe that the concept of ‘design’ encompasses every aspect of customers’s exposure to a brand, from the moment they hear about us to the first time they visit our store to the process of ordering and anticipating the arrival of their glasses.
On the environmental front there’s concern about global warming and high levels of carbon dioxide, and trees take in CO2 and store carbon.
My heart really lies in my jewelry line, Archangel. I have really enjoyed watching the company go from nothing and slowly building it year by year, and getting into one store, then another store. And then I’ll see someone wearing a piece of it on the streets, and it’s all very exciting.
On two or three book tours, I have visited bookstores in the Mall of America and signed copies of my books and introduced myself to store employees who I hope will sell them.
What’s important at the grocery store is just as important in engines or medical systems. If the customer isn’t satisfied, if the stuff is getting stale, if the shelf isn’t right, or if the offerings aren’t right, it’s the same thing. You manage it like a small organization. You don’t get hung up on zeros.
The fellow that owns his own home is always just coming out of a hardware store.
I like loud music. I like music that fills my ears. I’m just going to pull out my iPod and see what we got here. We’re always interested in new bands because we have a retail store in northern California. I think it’s got to be happy.
Nothing seems at first sight less important than the outward form of human actions, yet there is nothing upon which men set more store: they grow used to everything except to living in a society which has not their own manners.
The same time I’m designing my collection, I’m also designing my store. It has to have brand awareness, an identity. I’m also designing the racks and the hangers, and juggling a lot of things.
I would go to the all-night grocery store and pretend that I was at Studio 54 because it was the only place open all night. Truman Capote in the frozen foods. Andy Warhol over in vegetables.
Yes, e-commerce is a strange situation for an old guy like me. You can buy a TV online, OK, but to buy a dress or shoes? Ugh. The customer has to go back to the store and breathe and smell and have a good time. Because shopping is a good time – like going to a nice restaurant.
If you have a deep-seated need to be loved and admired every day, you shouldn’t be in politics. You should go work at a pet store.
My first job in L.A. was actually playing an employee in a Best Buy commercial, but I played a bad employee at another store. I also worked at a commercial casting company running cameras and session directing.
My grandfather had a paint store. It’s what put my mom through college. Small business is part of my family history.
I don’t know what is in store for the movie business any better than anybody else does, but it does seem like my kind of movies are a little trickier than it used to be – or maybe a lot trickier.
If you go back to the first single-cell form of life, it clearly possessed the capacity to receive, to utilize, to store, to transform, and to transmit information.
I fell for MUJI socks at their store in N.Y.C.’s JFK airport, and now I get them in bundles.
When I was a teeny little girl, I was in dancing school, and I sang. We had to put a dance to a song, so I went to the 10-cent store one day and looked at all the sheet music. It was all laid out, and I picked ‘Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries.’
What I love about travel and shopping is seeing how different retailers in London, Paris, and New York interpret the same collection. I like to find the best store in town and take a good look because there will always be a nuance that you just can’t get anywhere else.
