Talk about a change in fortune. A scant five months ago Wayfair was trading at a 52-week low of $21.70. Then, following its August earnings release, in which it posted its first quarterly profit since its 2014 IPO, Wayfair’s stock price soared to as much as an astounding $316.50 per share. If you are keeping score at home, that means that an investment of $10,000 back in March, right when the pandemic hit, would now be worth roughly $150,000. Holy Hanna -- that’s one hell of a return in five months! Now, say what you will about the …
Management
Will Beauty’s Recent Support of Racial Justice Actually Stick?
When I decided to write about the explosive topic of racial justice and equality in America, and how that plays out within the beauty category, I came face-to-face with a four-letter word: fear. Dead Silence First, an analytics firm that measures consumer confidence - and that had originally approached The Robin Report offering its insights - declined to answer any questions regarding brand authenticity and racial justice. Next, a digital marketing platform, used by a huge number of DTC beauty brands to send promo emails and newsletters to …
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Fixing Macy’s: Possible and Impossible Solutions
Macy's was struggling even before the Covid-19 pandemic decimated fashion retailers, with profitability falling almost continuously since peaking in 2014. Earlier this year, management announced a new turnaround strategy called Polaris, but even successful execution of the plan would have translated into lackluster results. Management's targets entailed sales declines and only modest improvement in profitability over the next three years. The pandemic has made Macy's situation far more dire. The company posted an adjusted loss of $630 …
Can Bed Bath & Beyond Recover…And How Will They Do It?
Perhaps no American retailer's fall from grace has been as swift or dramatic as has Bed Bath & Beyond's. Legacy retailers like JC Penney and Gap have deteriorated slowly over long periods of time but BBB as recently as just a few years ago was considered one of the best in the business of retailing. Its myriad of problems has been well documented: an aging and bloated physical store fleet, lack of attention to building its e-commerce business, an inefficient supply chain that hadn't kept up with modern retailing practices and an insular …
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Crate & Barrel Has a New CEO
Here's a fascinating development in retailing: Replace a good merchant with another good merchant. What a concept. Crate & Barrel, the iconic lifestyle home furnishings retail chain announced over the past few days the departure of current CEO Needa Montgomery and her successor Janet Hayes, a former Williams Sonoma veteran with a good pedigree. As so many big retailing companies bring in operations and financial types to run their businesses, what's happening at Crate is a refreshing reminder that if the store isn't merchandised right, …
Shoptalk Meetup: Another First from Anil Aggarwal
Shoptalk Meetup was announced less than two weeks ago and with more than 2,000 attendees from over 1,000 companies registered, it's already the fall's largest retail event. Attendance is capped, so you better get on the waitlist now. I've said it before, and I'm saying it again, Anil Aggarwal, founder of Shoptalk, is a master disruptor. When he talks about connecting the retail ecosystem through industry events, he lives and speaks in terms of thousands (attendees) and millions (investment dollars). And those numbers have kept growing with …
It’s Now or Never for Wayfair
You can find just about anything for your home on Wayfair.com. But what you can't find is any black ink. In the middle of what is undoubtably the greatest surge of online buying in the history of the business, Wayfair - the largest dedicated home furnishings e-commerce player - is racking up double digit sales gains. In the process it's seen its stock rebound from a dangerously precipitous freefall just a few months ago to its all-time high. Being at the sweet spot at the convergence of trapped shoppers moving their purchasing online and …
Beauty Gets Ugly
Admittedly it was a very "Barbie In Her Beauty Bubble" stance to take, but this was my first thought when Forbes dropped its "Kylie Jenner fooled us about her billionaire status" bombshell: Wait -- by Forbes's calculations she's worth $900M? That's so close! But then I remembered that old saw about horseshoes and hand grenades - and this little thing called shareholders - and I knew I had to do some serious digging and reading to understand the ramifications for all parties involved. If Coty overpaid for its 51 percent stake of Kylie …