Grappling with a brutal shopping climate, the trendy fashion boutique Scoop has ousted its CEO, sources told The Post.
Melanie Cox – a 49-year-old veteran of bigger retail chains like Urban Outfitters, Wet Seal and Gymboree – resigned Wednesday after only a year at Scoop, according to sources close to the company.
Cox had been hired last year as Scoop founders Stefani Greenfield and Uzi Ben-Abraham were looking to expand the 15-store chain internationally. But the collapse of luxury spending last fall hit Scoop hard.
Billionaire investor Ron Burkle’s firm Yucaipa Cos. remains a committed backer of Scoop’s business, sources said. Still, recent losses have put a damper on the chain’s ambitious plans.
As department stores like Saks, Neiman Marcus and Barneys have canceled orders and forced designers to shoulder the costs of steep holiday markdowns, those designers have been less flexible with smaller boutiques that are stuck with unsold fashions.
That has left boutiques like Scoop and arch-rival Intermix stuck selling high-price goods for less than they bought them. The most recent casualty is Searle, whose chain of shops dotting the Upper East Side filed for Chapter 11 in January.
“All of these stores are chasing the same customer,” says Faith Hope Consolo, head of retail leasing at Prudential Douglas Elliman. “And that customer is only chasing goods that are 80 percent off.”
Nevertheless, Cox “wasn’t abandoning ship” as she left Scoop, according to one source close to the situation. “She was thrown overboard.”
Cox, who previously had served as a consultant to investment firms like Prentice Capital and Cerberus Capital Management, had an “institutional” approach that fell flat with employees and the fashion brands that fill Scoop’s stores, according to one source close to the company.
“People have kind of lost faith since Stefani left,” according to one source, referring to co-founder Greenfield, who enjoys the reputation of a visionary retail merchant.
That could make matters awkward for Greenfield, who last fall said she was stepping away from the company’s day-to-day operations to pursue other ventures, including a show on Home Shopping Network.