30 replies to this topic

[len_mullen]

from Reuters via Yahoo...

• "We believe Thanksgiving shopping was a bust," analysts at Suntrust Robinson Humphrey said in a research note. "Members of our team who went to the malls first had no problem finding parking or navigating stores."
• In early trading, shares of Target Corp were down 0.2 percent, while Macy's, Best Buy and J.C. Penney all lost more than 1 percent. Wal-Mart was also lower, while Amazon.com Inc traded up slightly.
• Shoppers in the United States spent more than $1 billion online, 22-percent more than last year, between midnight and 5 pm ET on Thursday, according to the Adobe Digital Index, which tracked 100 million visits to 4,500 U.S. retail sites.
• Shoppers are expected to be cautious with their spending again this year. The National Retail Federation is expecting holiday sales to rise 3.7 percent, slower than last year's 4.1 percent growth rate, due to stagnant wages and sluggish job growth.

from CNBC...

• Steve Barr, with PricewaterhouseCoopers, said early indications are that in-store sales will be flat, with the big winners being online stores and shoppers.
• Macy's estimates at least 15,000 people were waiting outside its flagship Herald Square store ahead of its 6 p.m. Thanksgiving opening, roughly in line with last year.
• According to data from NPD Group and CivicScience, 57 percent of consumers hadn't even started their holiday shopping as of Sunday.
• [Third-quarter] revenues have risen just 2.3 percent, according to Retail Metrics. "Forward guidance has been very cautious and predominantly negative"
• GameStop, Tiffany, Burlington,DollarTree, Fred's, Signet and Calares...all projected either their fourth-quarter or full-year earnings below consensus forecasts.
• Data from Adobe show that between Nov. 1 and 24, digital sales increased 8.5 percent compared with last year — shy of 11 percent increase that's anticipated for the whole season. That compares with 12 percent growth last November and December.
• As of Thursday evening, Adobe said more than $1 billion had already been spent online, representing growth of 22 percent from last year.

Edited by len_mullen, Nov 27, 2015 - 8:25 am.

[PCullen]

Not surprising.  I went to Walmart last night and it was empty.  I was shocked to see it so empty...they still had tons of stuff sitting around that had sold out online. 

 

Next stop was Meijer, and I think I could count the number of people in the store.  Completely empty! 

 

Target had a lot of people, even at 10 pm.  They had everything still in stock that I wanted.  Pleasantly surprised with Target, as always.

 

Walmart's online fiasco hurt them.

 

I went to Menard's this morning.  They were the busiest store I've been to so far.  Not opening on Thanksgiving didn't hurt them! 

 

I'm not opposed to shopping on Thanksgiving, but I would like to see it go back to the way it was before...stores opening early on Friday.  Now Walmart is doing Cyber Monday on Sunday!  I guess they really need to make up $$$ for their debacle. 

 

Also, the deals weren't that great...that's probably the biggest indicator for lackluster sales! 

[len_mullen]

I'm not opposed to shopping on Thanksgiving, but I would like to see it go back to the way it was before...stores opening early on Friday.  

 

My oldest and I were discussing this on the ride home from the in-laws last night.  He is a kid who does not go out on BF and has a good job with an office that closes for a two day holiday.  Yet he does not think stores should open on Thanksgiving.  I told him that a lot of the people who work that holiday are probably very happy to get double time or even eight hours of work on that day and that a lot of the people who camp out in front of a store are probably hoping to turn a good Christmas into a great Christmas for their families.  Who are we to stop all of that?  The fact is that stores will close on Thursday when sales and costs do not yield a profit.  We should just let the market take care of the problem.

 

It looks like the market may have heard me.

Edited by len_mullen, Nov 27, 2015 - 10:10 am.

[Brad]

"with the big winners being online stores and shoppers."

 

[riven3d]

Target had its biggest online shopping day ever on Thanksgiving.

"Demand outpaced 2014's record Thanksgiving performance, making it Target's biggest day for online sales yet," the retailer said in a release.

The record-breaking sales online were driven by three items: the Apple iPad, the Apple Watch, and the Wii U gaming console, the company said.

Target sold nearly all of its Black Friday doorbusters online beginning Thanksgiving morning. Because of the promotion, the brand saw a 35% increase in customers picking up items in stores.

[Dylansmommy]

I think consumers, for the most part, have become more savvy shoppers.  Price comparison shopping can be done in an instant on a phone or a computer, and that hurts retailers if they can't offer the best deal.   I know for me, I did the majority of my shopping online before yesterday.  I don't think the deals were that great to begin with.  The stores weren't crowded, with the exception of Target.  Walmart p*ssed off a lot of shoppers with their site going down and releasing items before the designated time...if you read the posts on their FB page, it's become a consumer relations nightmare!

 

And I think the argument against shopping on Thanksgiving gains more traction every year.  

 

If you're going to receive the same deals on Friday as you would on Thursday, then I think we should go back to Friday.  I think BF will always draw a crowd because you will always have shoppers who will fall for the hype and also will have shoppers that just like the tradition, but I think most consumers know that better deals can be had throughout the year.  

[Monstermile]

I too think things should go back to the way they were. Make Black Friday Black Friday again. It has become a competition to who can open earlier now. JC Penny opening at 3pm. Ridiculous. It is just gonna keep getting earlier and earlier. They should just have strictly online sales on Thursday. Include all of the doorbusters. That way people have options. No matter what people will still come out on Friday. Some people like picking up stuff in person and impulse buying. Others refuse to shop online.

And some of these stores offering Thursday only deals just to entice people out and away from their families is just wrong.


Tap'd from my 6 Plus

Edited by Monstermile, Nov 27, 2015 - 5:49 pm.

[Kanyon71]

I think the stores should be closed and let the online shopping deal with Thursday. The sites ALL seemed to be absolutely slammed yesterday a lot of the day. Things selling out quickly and then being restocked online.

[Scanner420]

I think the stores should be closed and let the online shopping deal with Thursday. The sites ALL seemed to be absolutely slammed yesterday a lot of the day. Things selling out quickly and then being restocked online.

Isn't this why Cyber Monday was created in the first place? 

[momof3luvs1]

WE do not go out until Thursday evening but every store we went too was not busy. People were there but not the Black Friday crowds. The outlets were practically empty. I miss the good old days of 5am openings! I think the people and the market got better results that way... 

[len_mullen]

Isn't this why Cyber Monday was created in the first place? 

 

Pop history tells us that Cyber Monday was created because people did not have internet access at home so they waited until Monday, at work, to shop online.  Of course, by 2006, most of us had pretty good high speed internet at home and most of us worked at jobs where you could not just sit at a computer and shop all day.

 

In reality, Cyber Monday was the first day after Black Friday that consumers could not go to a store to shop because they had to work.  Online shopping was the best way to extend the weekend's shopping spree.

 

It was kind of a 'me too' from fledgling online only merchants like Amazon.

[bribri25]

Now that the trend is shifting to ONLINE BF shopping, we need to have cyber Monday before BF.

Which sort of has started happening unofficially.

Edited by bribri25, Nov 28, 2015 - 7:41 am.

[len_mullen]

from http://hosted.ap.org...-11-29-19-41-49

 

[The National Retail Federation], which has long been criticized for its estimates of total spending over the extended weekend because they're based on shopper surveys and not actual sales data, said it will no longer track total spending for the weekend. 

 

The retail group on Sunday said more than 151 million people shopped in stores or online over the weekend, according to a survey of 4,281 shoppers. That compares with 133.7 million last year, but the group said those figures are not comparable because of its change in methodology.

 

It also estimated that spending per person was $299.60. That's below the nearly $381 figure last year, but the group also said this year's spending number is not comparable to those in previous years.

 

But overall, the group sticks by its pre-Black Friday prediction that sales in November and December will rise 3.7 percent to $630.5 billion. That's below last year's 4.1 percent growth.

 

Looks like I'm carrying these guys on my back.  Information I am getting locally is that there was no shortage of merchandise and that the stores were not too crowded.  Who knows, maybe it will be fun to go out again.  I like shopping in the stores if I have a fighting chance of getting the promised bargains.

[tinkrbel]

I guess i could have gone to wrong places or in wrong order...but i can most definitely tell you best buy did not have a line around the mall like it usually does and check out took less than 10 min. I didn't get there till maybe 9pm Thursday but previous years its been bad regardless. We were able to park near doors at each store we stopped at and checkout at Walmart was less than 5 min which is less than a regular weekday but we did leave at 1015ish so may have missed the rush.

I'm thinking maybe people hit store openings for 1 or 2 items and that boosted numbers.

[momlori]

I too saw less lines. We drove past Best Buy on thanksgiving around noon and saw about 20 people. Much fewer than usual

[Kanyon71]

I'm wondering if the split is going to trend towards online purchases this year? Seems many people I know are refusing to shop in store on Thanksgiving now.

[tinkrbel]

On gma this morning or news just before they mentioned instore sales were down 1 billion and online sales had increased.

http://abcnews.go.co...rocket-35480452

[Brad]

Article about Target.com having problems today:

 

http://www.reuters.c...eedName=topNews

[Kanyon71]

Ya it's been a PITA. It's either down or most things I have tried to buy say there is a line for this try adding again. What kind of BS is that lol.

[Brad]

Kohl's press release: http://phx.corporate...icle&ID=2118967

 

From Monday, November 23 through Sunday, November 29, top facts and stats on Kohls.com include:

More than 600 million page views on Kohls.com
More than 3 million customers placed orders on Kohls.com
More than 5 million Kohl’s App visits
More than 70% of Kohls.com orders were placed by Yes2You Rewards members
More than 25% of Kohls.com items expected to be fulfilled by stores either through Buy Online, Pick Up In Store or Ship From Store
 

[len_mullen]

Everything except the $.  I have a feeling Kohls owns a chunk of the lost $1,000,000,000 

[bribri25]

Kohl's didn't state what percentage of orders was canceled...

That 25% figure of in store pickup is insane.

[1angelnhvn]

I've had some items cancelled by Kohls.  We also noticed a lot less people out shopping.  Walmart had no lines at the store we went to although they had planned for big lines.  It was unusually warm here so was a pleasant shopping experience for us.

[NicM987]

I placed 2 large orders at Kohl's and thankfully no items were cancelled! Feeling pretty lucky since so many others have had items cancelled.

[berry1014]

We went out shopping Thursday night around 8:30. Stopped at our local walmart and could not believe how empty the parking lot and store was. This was the first year that I ever used a shopping cart for Black Friday shopping. We headed to a few other stores including 2 different Targets. The first Target was packed but the 2nd one was not. We ended up back to our local walmart around midnight as I forgot a couple door busters from there on my earlier trip. I was still able to get what I wanted and the cashiers were asking us to call our friends and family and tell them to come down to Walmart to shop as they were bored.  I did do more onine shopping this year and our spending for this Christmas will be on par on what we spent last year.

[jakesmommy403]

We were at Target around 8:30 Thursday night and it was busy in there, but not insane. Crowded, but manageable. Went over to Walmart about an hour later and it was dead in there. Like, weird dead. Hardly any shoppers, hardly any noise, the employees were wheeling pallets of canned goods back to where they belonged. We made a lap, my brother was very confused, and then we left. Now, I was in there on Sunday just grabbing some groceries and was surprised to see all the Black Friday movie displays still packed with DVD's!! I've never seen that before, usually those cardboard displays are ripped apart at our store. So what happened? Did they not pull them out in the first place? Do people not go for the cheap DVD's anymore? It was strange.

[Dylansmommy]

We were at Target around 8:30 Thursday night and it was busy in there, but not insane. Crowded, but manageable. Went over to Walmart about an hour later and it was dead in there. Like, weird dead. Hardly any shoppers, hardly any noise, the employees were wheeling pallets of canned goods back to where they belonged. We made a lap, my brother was very confused, and then we left. Now, I was in there on Sunday just grabbing some groceries and was surprised to see all the Black Friday movie displays still packed with DVD's!! I've never seen that before, usually those cardboard displays are ripped apart at our store. So what happened? Did they not pull them out in the first place? Do people not go for the cheap DVD's anymore? It was strange.

I had a very similar experience with Walmart.  I got there after 8.  I expected it to be busy, but was hoping that the lines had thinned by then, but it was fairly empty.  They still had a lot of the doorbusters left over, like the Roku tv, but the movies and DVDs were gone!  There was only a few titles available. 

 

I went yesterday to pick up a prescription and perused around a bit, and am thinking they must have had returns, because I saw some items that I didn't see before.  Gone were all the tvs...I doubt that they sold all of them because they had entire pallet filled with the Roku tvs and they didn't seem to be moving...maybe transferred them to another store?  All the cheap DVDs were thrown in one box, but there were titles in there that I didn't see on Thanksgiving. 

 

Overall, the entire Walmart experience was just bizarre. 

[jakesmommy403]

Oh, we stopped in Kohls around 11am on Friday and there was a line for the checkout wrapped around the store. We didn't really need anything from there and didn't feel like waiting if we did find something, so we left. But I was surprised to see them that busy later on in the morning like that!

[len_mullen]

As the Christmas shopping season winds down, I am surprised at the lack of reporting on retail sales and cash register receipts.  Expectations were tamped as early as September...
 

Retailers are in for a somewhat less merry holiday sales season this year, according to a forecast by consultancy Deloitte that predicts a 3.5 to 4 percent increase in sales during the industry’s most crucial selling period, compared to a 5.2 percent uptick in 2014.

  

[AlixPartners] said the expected weak sales are a result of upper middle-class shoppers being scared by a fluctuating stock market and waiting until the last minute to shop, thinking they will get better deals, Reuters reported. Sales growth for this holiday season, which runs from about November to December, is expected to grow from 2.8 percent to 3.4 percent.

Sales in November according to the U.S. Commerce Department increased 0.2 percent seasonally adjusted over October and 1.4 percent unadjusted year-over-year.

 
Pundits are blaming consumer spending numbers on lower gas prices and warm weather.  I found this amusing since they were blaming bad weather and high gas prices for the same thing lest year.  I'm going to see Star Wars Sunday.  Between dinner and the movie, I will be in the malls for the first time since summer.  It will be interesting to see how enthusiastic last minute shoppers are just five days before Christmas.

 

You may want to stroll through a Sears (same-store sales drop of 13.9%), K-mart (same-store sales drop of 6.9%), or a Radioshack this holiday season, because I don't think we will waiting for their Black Friday ads next year.

[Kanyon71]

As the Christmas shopping season winds down, I am surprised at the lack of reporting on retail sales and cash register receipts.  Expectations were tamped as early as September...
 

  

 
Pundits are blaming consumer spending numbers on lower gas prices and warm weather.  I found this amusing since they were blaming bad weather and high gas prices for the same thing lest year.  I'm going to see Star Wars Sunday.  Between dinner and the movie, I will be in the malls for the first time since summer.  It will be interesting to see how enthusiastic last minute shoppers are just five days before Christmas.

 

You may want to stroll through a Sears (same-store sales drop of 13.9%), K-mart (same-store sales drop of 6.9%), or a Radioshack this holiday season, because I don't think we will waiting for their Black Friday ads next year.

You would think the cheaper things are and the nicer out it is the more people would want to go out shopping. I think a lot more shopping was done online this year I do believe that a good portion of people would rather shop online than go into the stores on Thanksgiving.

 

I was honestly surprised that someone bought the Radioshack assets and kept some open. I figured they might go the way of Compusa and Circuit City where someone buys them for a name and they become a shell of what they were.

 

I know this year we shopped at a lot less places than we normally do, we actually bought a few things at K-Mart they had some decent deals BUT it took forever to check out which is one thing that drives me nuts with them.