Federated choosing their brands

As Federated decides which brands will make it onto their shelves after the merger (hint: the May Company brands aren't winning many of the battles), some well-known names are losing a big piece of their distribution. Florsheim and Nunn Bush, two top shoe brands formerly carried at May stores, but not at Federated, are among the losers.

The article linked, from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, is a good overview of many of the issues involved in the merger -- there's more info than we can excerpt, so I suggest you read it.

Of particular interest is the info on brands reacting to the shrinking channel by opening their own stores (Jones and Liz Claiborne are mentioned). We've hit on the same point -- as retailers go more private label and as manufacturers open their own stores, there will eventually be little difference between them.