Lands' End will eliminate more than 375 jobs and close a call center, the Dodgeville, WI, company reported yesterday.
“People have shifted the way they shop and the way they make contact with Lands' End,” company spokeswoman Cynthia Hardie said regarding why these changes and others will be made.
The multichannel marketer, owned by Sears, Roebuck and Co., said it is restructuring operations to better meet changing customer shopping habits as demand has grown through “multiple channels” while “phone center contact has declined.” One shift is that Lands' End's Internet sales have grown, Hardie said.
The company's catalog circulation will be unaffected, she added.
Lands' End will eliminate 200 full-time jobs, 175 part-time positions and some seasonal positions. The company will close its call center in Cross Plains, WI, effective June 5. Lands' End has three other centers in Wisconsin that will handle all phone calls once the Cross Plains center closes. Thirty positions being lost from the computer-aided design division will be outsourced, some to current vendors, Hardie said.
Lands' End also will restructure its product development functions. The merchandising, design, inventory, quality and sourcing resources — which previously existed within the business unit — will shift into separate, centralized functions. Internet operations, previously its own group, will be integrated into each unit.
Chantal Todé covers catalog and retail news and BTB marketing for DM News and DM News.com. To keep up with the latest developments in these areas, subscribe to our daily and weekly e-mail newsletters by visiting www.dmnews.com/newsletters
