Michael C. Fina helped popularize bridal registries, and its Park Avenue store was a destination for Manhattan elites. It provided silver for John F. Kennedy’s inauguration festivities and catered to the likes of Frank Sinatra and Lennox Lewis.
But with foot traffic falling more than 80 percent in the last decade, the writing on the wall became clear: If you can’t beat Amazon, join Amazon.
On April 16, Michael C. Fina, which had sales of $16 million last year, will close its sole brick-and-mortar store, laying off about 20 workers and bringing to an end an 81-year run in Manhattan.
Instead, the retailer is moving entirely online, including teaming with Amazon.com as part of a planned revamping of the e-commerce giant’s wedding registry service.
“The initial reaction was definitely: ‘What are you, nuts? How do you have a retail business, and no store?’” said Steven Fina, 35, current president and the grandson of the retailer’s founder.
“But we’ve seen in our own lives that the way we shop has changed,” he said.
Michael C. Fina is hardly the first retailer to buckle to the ever-mounting shift of shopping to the web. But the company is one of the most storied retailers to take its business online-only as a way to survive.
The luxury store’s deal with Amazon provides a glimpse into one way the online retail giant is bolstering its luxury offerings. Michael C. Fina’s wedding registry page on the new site will offer high-end brands, like Baccarat and Buccellati, that have so far been loath to make their goods officially available on Amazon.
The partnership also illustrates how deeply Amazon has woven itself into the business of independent merchants. In recent years, the company has experienced huge growth in a service it calls Fulfillment by Amazon, in which independent sellers pay Amazon to hold and ship their products, which extends to customers the fast delivery benefits of Amazon’s Prime membership.
Through its fulfillment service, Amazon shipped more than a billion items to customers last year, and the number of sellers using the program grew over 50 percent from the previous year. Amazon has a standard fee structure for independent merchants that use its fulfillment services, with the amount varying based on the weight and dimensions of the item.
It is unclear how the Michael C. Fina brands and products will stand out on the sprawling site. An Amazon spokeswoman declined to comment about Michael C. Fina, but provided an invitation to an event on April 12 in New York to introduce the new wedding registry site.
The family executives. Michael C. Fina already had a online store, but it could take up to 72 hours for a product to be shipped. Amazon said it could deliver in as little as two hours.CreditSasha Maslov for The New York Times
The invitation said the new site would provide gift ideas in 15 categories, including flatware, cookware, home décor and appliances. The site will feature collections of products including Le Creuset cookware sets, Sonos speaker systems and Black & Decker tools.
For Michael C. Fina, going online-only was a difficult yet inevitable choice, Mr. Fina said. The retailer already operates an e-commerce site, but it can take up to 72 hours for a product to be shipped.
“In this day and age, we recognize the fact that was too long,” he said. Amazon has told him that its fulfillment centers will be able to ship an order in as little as two hours. Mr. Fina also said he expected shipping costs to fall by as much as 50 percent, because of Amazon’s economies of scale.
A change in the habits of wedding registry shoppers beyond buying online made it imperative for Michael C. Fina to join platforms that offered a more diverse range of registry choices. The company will also offer its wares on Zola.com, an online wedding registry start-up, and it will continue to sell through its own site.
Shan-Lyn Ma, founder of Zola.com, said that because couples in the United States were marrying much later than ever, and because they increasingly lived with their partners before tying the knot, their wedding gift needs had shifted away from the housewares and appliances that traditionally went toward setting up a first home.
“Couples are really starting to value experiences rather than straight wedding products you might have seen in our mothers’ and grandmothers’ wedding registries,” Ms. Ma said.
On Zola.com, couples can list hiking trips, hot air balloon rides and food delivery subscriptions, as well as funds for puppies, honeymoons and even fertility treatments. Zola, started in 2013 by Ms. Ma, a former executive at Gilt, the flash-sales site, has also spent the past year courting Casper mattresses, Sonos wireless audio systems and other brands popular among young adults.
But she has since realized that many couples want to add a few traditional items into their wedding registry mix. And a partnership with Michael C. Fina, she said, gave Zola access to brands that the site might have trouble courting.
“Baccarat, Georg Jensen: Michael C. Fina has longstanding relationships with brands that we don’t currently offer,” she said. “We’re seeing a lot of high-low mixing.”
Mr. Fina said that the retailer’s merchants, marketing team, graphic designers and other back-office employees would largely keep their jobs. Most of the job losses would occur on the sales floor, he said, and the retailer would assist those laid off in finding new jobs in retailing. The company told its employees on Monday.
“This was the most difficult part of our decision,” said Mr. Fina, who runs the retailer with his two brothers and a cousin. “Some of these people have worked for us for decades; they’ve been so loyal.”
He added: “But we’re doing this because this is what our customers are telling us. We may be 80 years old, but we have to stay ahead of the curve.”
