“Second-tier markets, innovative merchandise and low rents. That’s my concept.”
That’s Marcus Lemonis, serial investor and the star of CNBC’s reality show “The Profit,” explaining, in a nutshell, the strategy for Marcus, the women’s contemporary fashion brand he started last fall. “You know my mantra: Rents kill retail businesses.” Marcus already has 21 stores up and running, most converted from other small retail operations that Lemonis took over.
Lemonis was outside his latest Marcus store opening, at 402 West 13th Street in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District, behind the velvet rope getting photographed, one-by-one, with scores of well-wishers who came for the grand opening of the Marcus store, munch on gold dusted pretzels, and check out the wares.
Among those in the crowd of about 450 were Sports Illustrated 2018 Cover Girl Danielle Herrington, Broderick Hunter, Patricia Van Der Vliet, Dale Moss, and Lemonis’ wife Bobbi. They met at The Coterie trade show two years ago. Lemonis bought her fashion store business and converted it to Marcus stores, and the two were married last February. “Marcus and I do all the buying for Marcus. Now we’re just breaking into the children’s business,” in addition to the women’s sweaters, cashmeres, T-shirts, jeans, accessories, candles, chocolates and other items sold, she said. “Keeping up with Marcus means working 26 hours a day.”
