Counter Culture

June sales results proved that discount chains are the ones winning the battle during this recession downturn.

According to ICSC’s monthly same-store sales survey, luxury stores experienced a 10.9% year over year decline in June, while discounters rose 5.1%. Wal-Mart’s 6.4% gain compared with Nordstrom’s 18.6% decline tells the plainly tells the story.
Continue reading ‘Discounters Rule the Retail Landscape’

Whoa! People are talking about holiday sales already?!?!

Economists are apparently worried about how retailers will perform this holiday season, which is about as surprising to us as hot weather in Phoenix. “The holiday season will be bad — if not worse than the last year,” says Bernard Baumohl, managing director and chief global economist at the Economic Outlook Group LLC.
Continue reading ‘Holiday Sales Freak You Out Already?’

Though attendance at the International Council of Shopping Centers’ RECon event in Las Vegas seems a little lighter than years past, the convention is by no means slow.

When asking one person during a meeting today, Roy Higgs, the CEO of architecture firm Development Design Group, how he would describe the show’s climate, the answer was “the opposite of doom and gloom.”
Continue reading ‘The Opposite of Doom and Gloom.’

Howard Davidowitz is one of our favorite people to interview. The retail analyst, who is chairman of NYC-based consulting firm Davidowitz & Associates, is always fun to talk to because of his strong and animated opinions, many of which are too “colorful” to add to a news article.

In this MarketWatch audio clip, he is pretty tame, probably because he knows he’s on radio. But there are still a few things he says that are gems, like: “The consumer is underwater.” And there is also a reference to rebate checks “flying out of helicopters.” Fun aside, Davidowitz’s outlook for the industry is pretty bleak right now.

AnnTaylor Stores surprised investors yesterday forecasting a better-than-expected first quarter, with management saying that earnings per share could come in between 45 cents and 47 cents, up from a previously predicted 35 cents to 40 cents. The outlook rose shares 10%.

Granted, Q1 same-store sales were down 4.3%, plunging 11.5% at Ann Taylor units and inching up 0.7% at Loft, but this is favorable news during a time when we aren’t hearing too many good things about the apparel sector.
Continue reading ‘Ann Taylor Gets Lift…Will Apparel Follow?’

Msnbc.com interviews some of our favorite analysts about the state of apparel in today’s retail environment, and it’s not pretty. Apparently, consumers just aren’t buying clothes because they NEED to buy food and gas, which are both rising in cost and taking precedence over the newest Abercrombie T-shirt.

A quote by C. Britt Beemer, an analyst at America’s Research Group, is telling. “I’ve done research for 29 years, and what I’m seeing today I can’t compare to anything I’ve seen before,” he said.

Ouch.
Continue reading ‘Is Apparel Doomed This Year?’

An article in the San Jose Mercury News brings up a point we often wonder about. Are online sales less desirable for retailers than transactions in stores?

According to a Forrester Research-Shop.org study, Internet sales are forecast to grow 17% this year, hitting $204 billion. It is a large increase, but slightly down from the 21% gain, and $175-billion total retailers collected in 2007.
Continue reading ‘Do Online Sales Take Away From Stores?’

A tax rebate this year that President Bush recently approved would put between $600 and $1,200 in the hands of most taxpayers. And according to this article, many retail executives seem to think that this money will potentially end up in their stores.

“Wal-Mart and Circuit City are putting together strategies to draw in customers for what retailers say will be a bigger payoff than Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day,” the article says. Mike Ullman, the chairman at J. C. Penney, says stores “would obviously compete vigorously” for shares of this money.
Continue reading ‘Will Rebate Checks Help Retailers?’

To the surprise of few, wholesale clubs and discounters had the strongest sales in February, as the economy continues to smack down consumers. Costco’s same-stores sales rose 7% year over year, and Wal-Mart’s chains advanced a solid (for this environment) 2.6%.

But February’s results still left us with some questions.
Continue reading ‘Costco, Wal-Mart Benefit From Downturn’

When retailers around the country today report their same-stores sales results for February, don’t expect Macy’s Inc. to join them. A Wall Street Journal article reports that the department-store giant will join the Dollar General, Home Depot and Sears Holdings, in not revealing the monthly figures.

The article’s author asserts that “monthly reports have actually lost significance as an economic indicator over time. For one thing, they don’t reflect two big shifts in the way consumers shop.” Online sales, calendar shifts that skew the timing of holidays and gift cards have lessened the relevance of the monthly reports, the article says.
Continue reading ‘Macy’s Abandons Monthly Sales Reports’