First, a Word from Robin Lewis While we typically choose articles more directly related to the major events of the day occurring in retail and related industries, this article is so important because it informs us about one of our largest future threats, hidden in plain sight. I say hidden because we, as a retail industry, prefer it to stay hidden, or better, just go away. The critical concern about the environment, sustainability, etc. and so forth, are profoundly brought together in this article, sending a powerful wake-up call to focus on …
Opinion
Reflections from an Ex-Urban
Suburban Stories In our post-pan world, the choices of where and how we spend our money have changed. The inequities of our American culture are stark. In spite of Covid, the stock market is up. Some Americans are doing just fine. Any of us with Fortune 50 stock holdings are richer today than we were a year ago. We may not be buying fashion or going on vacations, but we are revisiting our homes and our kitchens. Suburban contractors are busy; Home Depot, Tractor Supply (a personal favorite) and Ace Hardware are all booming. The wait time for …
NRF’s Confounding Holiday Growth Pronouncement
Early in the morning, just as soon as the Census Department released its Advanced Monthly Retail Trade Survey for December 2020, I took a cursory look. It told me what I needed to know. Retail was doing reasonably well by year’s end, but certainly not great. One sign of weakness: On a month-by-month basis, retail trended down, not up. Seasonally adjusted sales were down 0.7 percent from November, following a monthly drop of 1.4 percent in November. This compares to monthly increases of 2.9 percent in December last year and 3.7 percent for …
The New Consumer Faces an Anxious Future
Conventional wisdom insists the world as we’ve come to know it this past year balances precariously on a polarizing precipice: economic instability vs. the stock market’s irrational exuberance. Remember what happened to irrational exuberance? Consumer behavior today straddles a tipping point. To be clear, marketers are balancing the same divide. Poised on this teeter-totter, the key question looms: wither brands that understand and serve The New Consumer? Fairytale Moments Today’s reading of reality reminds us of the ballet version of The …
That Was the Year That Was…and Wasn’t
The genesis of the state of the retail industry today in the U.S. began about a quarter century ago as a slowly rolling transformation resulting from the launch of the smartphone. And you could add Amazon into the mix as an accelerant. The slow roll was catapulted forward at warp speed with the onset of Covid-19 early this year. It propelled both the demise of those retailers who were pivoting too slowly or not at all, and the success of those who were strategically shifting their business models to align with tech-armed next-gen consumers. The …
Opinion: Do Prestige Beauty Brands Need to Pivot?
As an industry observer for many decades, I believe the prestige sector of the $532 billion global beauty industry is desperately working to find new ways of retaining its best customers during the ongoing pandemic -- and beyond. Now, in addition to trying to acquire new customers -- a chief goal of the last 10 years -- luxury brands are struggling to retain their base, who, because of Covid-19 safety concerns, are even more department store-resistant than they already were. With the pandemic, the major lure of department stores -- that women …
Amazon and Walmart Go Deeper into Apparel: But Why?
While retail sales of apparel were getting hammered before Covid was even part of our common vocabulary, it soared to the rank of number-one loser during the pandemic (the Work From Home phenomenon as a big contributor). According to McKinsey & Co., apparel revenue for the year is expected to drop by 20 percent to 30 percent industry-wide, and by 10 percent to 25 percent in 2021 compared with last year. Also, a big contributor to declining apparel sales pre-pandemic was the emergence of the now dominant next-gen consumer culture with a …
Amazon and Walmart Go Deeper into Apparel: But Why?Read More
For Whom the Retail Bell Tolls
Recent news headline: Retail CEO announces that luxe retail is the new normal. Another recent news headline: Real estate empresario comments on how overbuilt and expensive New York City has become. We were, of course, shocked to learn that real estate was expensive here. Any fair-minded observer can be forgiven a moment of disgust as these particular twin revisionist rationales work to fling more pixie dust on the legitimate question we face, Whither retail reality? Ghost Town It's not all Covid all the time. Think of the forced march to …