My take: They are doing a lot of things right, but seems like they are not listening to their customer

My take: The success of the CEO's strategy would seem to require totally new customers and ignores the old ones. The old customers want coupons/sales likely due to their income levels. The new strategy seems to be aimed at a totally different type customer - affluent enough to not need or want to buy things on sale.

I'm reminded of the Bill Knapp restaurant chain whose customer base had a large percentage of older/retired customers. The CEO decided to make some changes that catered to a younger crowd and de-emphasized the older customers. The older customers left and the younger customers never came. Bill Knapp went bk shortly after and are gone today.

The customer (that you have) is always No. 1. Forget that at your own peril.

Rich