Our Clients

PwC Canada’s Retail Consulting Services practice has helped solve clients’ problems across Canada and the United States. Here is what some of them have to say about our work:

“[Retail Consulting Services] demonstrated a deep understanding of markdown optimization and merchandising. Bringing their experience to the table, they helped us define new processes that leverage markdown optimization, shifting from chain level markdowns to targeted price zone levels. [Retail Consulting Services] were a key contributor to the success of this project and helped us to achieve a rapid return on our investment."

Michael Rempell, SVP & CIO, American Eagle Outfitters

"A few months ago, we participated in the retail industry-specific Finance and Accounting benchmark study. We were initially concerned about the comparability of the information to our business, but [Retail Consulting Services was] able to attract several best-of-breed retailers as participants. As a result, we learned that there were several areas of opportunity for our accounting/finance operation to improve efficiencies and enhance ROI. Overall, participation in the benchmark study delivered actionable results and was a very meaningful experience for AE."

Laura Weil, former CFO, American Eagle Outfitters
American Eagle is a leading casual lifestyle retailer, with more than $2 billion in annual sales.

"[Retail Consulting Services] are the only consultants in the marketplace that have delivered tangible results through merchandizing improvements. Their proven track record and merchandising-specific experience make them a valuable resource. We could not have achieved our productivity improvements without them."

Bruce Berman, EVP and CFO, Bloomingdale's
Bloomingdale's is a division of Federated Department Stores, and operates department stores at 33 locations.

[Retail Consulting Services]’s experience with markdown optimization, coupled with their knowledge of merchandising operations, led us to the successful identification and prioritization of our requirements. They also worked with us to fine tune our future markdown process, including aligning roles and key performance measurements, and considering those impacts on our other processes."

Joe Sperlunto, Director, Application Development, Charming Shoppes

"[Retail Consulting Services] helped us fundamentally improve the way we plan our assortments. Together with our team of merchants and planners, they designed and implemented a new assortment planning process that we believe will allow us to achieve our business goals by offering our customers an improved and tailored assortment. [Retail Consulting Services] helped us construct an actionable framework that will allow us to track and measure performance against our goals. They were instrumental in embedding the new process and mindset in our organization – they were a great contributor to our success."

Keith Spirgel, VP Financial Planning & Business Support, Charming Shoppes
Charming Shoppes operates over 2,200 specialty apparel stores across the U.S., with annual sales of $2.4 billion.

"[Retail Consulting Services has] brought an important perspective to Casual Male’s efforts to implement leading practices to its supply chain processes and inventory management, while at the same time assisting Casual Male in strengthening its latest systemic merchandising tools. Having their in-depth retail industry knowledge and experience has been an important element in making successful infrastructure improvements."

Dennis Hernreich, COO, Casual Male Retail Group
Casual Male operates over 500 specialty men's apparel stores across North America.

"The [Retail Finance Benchmark] process was worthwhile as it enabled us to benchmark our costs. It was a good reality check for us on how we are doing. The study has given us a number of things to think about and highlighted some possible areas of improvement."

Stuart Auld, CFO, Canadian Tire Retail
Canadian Tire is Canada's largest hard goods retailer, operating more than 460 stores and 250 gas stations nationwide.

[Retail Consulting Services]’s experience and their ability to take on the merchants' point of view is beneficial for this important initiative. They're working closely with our team to help us prioritize and work through difficult issues, such as moving from national to zone pricing and making changes to our existing markdown processes. Establishing merchant buy-in and support early on in the project is key to realizing the benefits we seek."

Andrew Milstein, Executive Merchandise Manager, Burlington Coat Factory

"What our peers told us was very compelling: [Retail Consulting Services] played a key role in helping them develop the new strategy, processes, organizational buy-in and practical training that ensured the markdown recommendations from the system would be actionable. It was clear from those discussions that merchandise optimization is about much more than the technology; it also requires working closely with the merchants to establish a new way of thinking about margin optimization. We decided [Retail Consulting Services]’s involvement would greatly assist us in this undertaking."

Brad Friedman, VP of IT, Burlington Coat Factory
Burlington Coat Factory operates over 360 department stores across the United States, with annual sales of $3.2 billion.

"We have used many consultants over the years. [Retail Consulting Services] stand above all the others due to their knowledge of retail processes, their ability to focus on the deliverables of the project and deal with the unknowns as they develop."

Gary Charboneau, SVP Sales and Merchandising, Duane Reade, Inc.
Founded in 1960, Duane Reade is the largest drug store chain in the metropolitan New York City area.

"We recently completed a Retail Finance Benchmark survey with [Retail Consulting Services]. Participating exclusively with other retailers in this “apples to apples” comparison for various finance processes proved to be a worthwhile exercise. Doing so highlighted areas where we are strong performers and reinforced my beliefs about improvement opportunities in several others. Contrasting our finance productivity measures, resource allocation and areas of emphasis with other retailers provided a meaningful scorecard. Going forward, we shall use the comparative results to influence our process and organizational related decisions. We anticipate retaking the survey at some future date to gauge our progress."

Kevin Regan, VP Finance, Big Y Foods
Based in Springfield, MA, Big Y Foods is a family-owned grocery chain with 55 locations.

"What we like about [Retail Consulting Services] is that they are very strategic and very ROI-focused. In addition, they know retail extremely well and don't bring in an army of people. They provide practical hands-on assistance to drastically improve a company's financial performance. By analyzing our merchandize operations, shifting our focus from sales to margins and educating and training our staff, we saw immediate results. They are a big part of the millions of dollars of gross margin improvement that we've had this year."

Michael Stanek, CFO, Northern Group Retail, Ltd.
Northern Group is one of Canada's largest specialty apparel chains, operating over 250 stores.

"[Retail Consulting Services has] more knowledge about retailing operations than other consulting firms I have dealt with. They are much more effective and efficient than the other big consulting firms. They came into Spencer Gifts, rolled up their sleeves and got down to work with our people."

John Hacala, Former Chairman and CEO, Spencer Gifts, Inc.
Spencer Gifts operates over 600 specialty gift stores across North America.

"The [Retail Finance Benchmark] survey confirmed a number of areas where we felt there were opportunities for improvement, but more importantly, gave us targets to strive for. It also confirmed that some areas were performing well and don’t need heightened attention at this time."

Jim McGill, CFO, Indigo Books& Music Inc.
Indigo is Canada's largest book retailer, operating more than 250 locations under multiple banners.

"[Retail Consulting Services] helped us to assess and prioritize requirements, set goals and devise action plans to achieve these goals. They even helped us find good people to replace our weak links. They bring strong functional knowledge to the table through consultants who are united by a desire to get it done right. We have found the firm to be true partners and would strongly recommend them to other retailers in need of any of their broad range of services."

Steven Bryce, Former CFO, The Nuance Group
The Nuance Group is the world's leading airport duty free retailer, with locations on four continents.