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The so-called Super Bowl Retail is back, with Black Friday and Cyber Monday likely to attract tens of millions of customers over the long weekend to kick off their holiday season spending.
An environment conducive to consumer spending in the United States, which Target's president, Brian Cornell, has called the best memory – no weather forecast hindering purchases in the country and young buyers ready to make more in the stores – means that any retailer who stumbles this long weekend have no one to blame but themselves. Indeed, the consensus of analysts is that it will be a holiday season: Moody's, among others, provides a growth in retail sales of 5% to 6%.
According to a survey by the National Retail Federation, some 164 million Americans will go shopping, in-store or online, at some point during the holiday weekend. And last week, channels such as Target, Walmart (wmt), Macy's (m), Kohl's (kss) and Best Buy (bby) all reported strong sales growth in the previous quarter.
But buyers are more volatile than ever, they are looking for the number one, as revealed by a Deloitte survey as the holidays approach. "Nearly half of those polled told us they did not know which retailer they would buy over the weekend," said Rod Sides, vice president of Deloitte's board of directors.
This means that companies that have invested heavily in loyalty programs to gain insight into their customers and improve their ability to communicate more directly with them are the biggest winners. Kohl's (kss) and Ulta Beauty (ulta) are among the leaders on this front, but Macy's has made great progress over the past year in reworking its rewards system.
And those who started early in online marketing and promotions also deserve to be winners: Adobe Analytics said online sales from November 1 to 20 had increased 16.7% over the previous year. last year, reaching nearly $ 32 billion.
The stock dives of many major retailers this week despite the good sales results of many major chains also show growing concern on Wall Street about the costs of competition with Amazon.com: (amzn) Bloomberg reported, citing data from DynamicAction reports that free orders and shipments increased by 13% this year since November 16th. And the big chains' investments in integrating stores and e-commerce (Kohl's, for example, will route about 50% of his e-commerce orders to stores, Target's digital sales 49% to the last quarter) will test it, as will the volume of orders.
Yet, despite all the good recent figures, some channels remain in an extremely dangerous situation and the beginning of the holiday season could eliminate more.
Here is an overview of the chain stores on the spot during this holiday season:
Macy's and Kohl's
Both channels have experienced several quarters of growth, but they must prove that they are not only driven by a strong economy and that their e-commerce enhancement strategies, loyalty programs and better use of customer data are working.
J.C. Penney
Penney reported last week that sales plunged into this environment, forcing the chain of department stores to prove that despite all its problems, and how far it is far behind its competitors in terms of firepower in the e-commerce. There is still room for this in the world of retail. It opens at 14 hours. on Thanksgiving, three hours before its most direct competitors, in what looks like a Hail Mary pass.
Target
The chain, which seeks to follow Amazon and surpasses Walmart at least on the front, offers free delivery this season and will have to show that the increase in sales is worth it, investors being worried about its profitability. He will also have to show that he can compete with Amazon and Walmart as the three parties compete for toy sales following the disappearance of Toys "R" Us.
Walmart
The biggest retailer is on an online line and its ability to generate more traffic. Black Friday and the rest of the holidays will show how much its stores are an advantage over Amazon.
Best buy
The chain has been challenging the odds for several years by strengthening its offering in in-store services and the holiday season will highlight its latest efforts to de-merchandise the electronics.
Barnes & Noble
The bookseller, who boasted this week of a comparable drop in sales, certainly much less spectacular than its poor performance in recent years, offers entertaining offers to buy. The holiday season will therefore be an important test for potential buyers, which Barnes & Noble can still convince buyers.
The hole
Gap Inc. (gps) has just released another quarter of dismal results, despite years spent by the company improving its production process and efforts to make the product more attractive.
Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdale's and Neiman Marcus
The four high-end department store chains are booming, but they compete with the fast-growing Farfetch, facing more high-end brands selling directly to buyers via their websites and their own stores, and making changes. in the way young shoppers buy luxury.
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