Stein Mart

Stein Mart was the Jacksonville, Florida off-price retailer founded by Sam Stein in Greenville, Mississippi in 1908 and turned by his grandson Jay Stein into a nationwide chain offering current-season, moderate-to-better fashion for women and men, accessories, shoes and home fashions at prices 20% to 60% below department stores — with the presentation of a better store rather than a warehouse. The company traded on Nasdaq as SMRT. Stein Mart filed for Chapter 11 on August 12, 2020 and closed its 279 stores; Retail Ecommerce Ventures bought its intellectual property for about $6 million and relaunched Stein Mart online, and the brand continues under later online ownership.

Company Profile

The February 2019 summary in the record states the positioning exactly: the fashion merchandise, service and presentation of a better department or specialty store, with a focused assortment of current-season, moderate-to-better apparel — the boutique-feel end of off-price, aimed principally at women aged 35 to 55. The October 2013 summary counts 262 stores at August 2013 and repeats the founding facts: 1908, Jacksonville headquarters.

The April 2006 summary in the record adds the family line — founded by the then-chairman's grandfather just after the turn of the twentieth century — and the price promise, 20% to 60% below department and specialty stores. Stein Mart's regular customers were famously loyal to that combination of labels and presentation; what the model could not survive was a pandemic spring with stores closed and a balance sheet already stretched.

The range behind the name is current-season, moderate-to-better fashion apparel, accessories, shoes and home fashions at off prices. Its customers are women principally aged 35 to 55 and their households, formerly in stores and now online. That combination — what is sold, and to whom — is the simplest way to place Stein Mart in the industry: it explains the company's costs, its competitors and the kind of news that moved its shares when it had them. A change in either half of the combination, a new product category or a new customer, is usually the first sign that the business described in the older summaries is turning into something different.

Scale should be read from the dated summaries with their dates attached. Store counts, sales descriptions and market positions quoted there were the company's own account of itself in that year, and they are the right basis for comparing Stein Mart with the other companies in this section — a component supplier against a retailer, or a catalogue house against a mall chain — as long as each figure is compared with figures from roughly the same period.

For current dealings, the snapshot at the top of this page is the place to start: it gives the company's present status — Stores closed in 2020 — the brand continues online; Stein Mart filed for Chapter 11 in August 2020, its 279 stores closed, and its name was bought and relaunched as an online retailer — and links to the official website, which is where current product ranges, store information and investor or corporate contacts are maintained. Anything in the dated summaries that conflicts with the snapshot should be read as the older position: summaries describe the year they are dated, and the snapshot describes the company as it stands now.

For anyone researching the fashion industry's public-company era, Stein Mart is a useful case: a 1908 family business whose stores closed in 2020 while its name moved online. The summaries in this section were compiled while the story was still unfolding, which is exactly what makes them worth keeping — they preserve what the company said about itself at the time, before the outcome was known.