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Jeff Green Partners

A LEADER IN RETAIL REAL ESTATE FEASIBILITY

jgreen@jeffgreenpartners.com

415-847-1770

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Fall-ing into the Holidays

Observant shoppers will have noticed something ominous in recent weeks: the arrival of fall and winter products and holiday marketing/promotions in many stores. As unbelievable as it might seem, considering the fact that much of the country is still experiencing 90-degree heat and a glance at the calendar shows that it is barely September as I write this edition of Retail Rap, the holiday hullabaloo is already underway. The Halloween décor you saw showing up in August in Walmart is not a figment of your imagination, and the cinnamon pinecones you smell in the bins outside the grocery store are really there.

My own personal take on the timing issue is that the holiday season phenomenon has been pushed about as far as it can reasonably go. When we go to the store and see all these signals that fall is here, even though both the weather and the calendar might say otherwise, there’s a kind of seasonal dissonance that sets in. Because who wants winter to come that quickly? How many shoppers are really ready to think about this stuff, much less actually start buying it? Ultimately, I’m not sure if this is helping to move more merchandise.

Let’s discuss the issues that the growing trend of pushing the holiday shopping “season” up earlier may cause for brick-and-mortar retailers in this edition of Retail Rap.

Pass or Fail?

As an article that recently appeared in Chain Store Age has noted, there is something interesting going on with back-to-school shopping this year. At a time when online sales seem to be inexorably chipping away at brick-and-mortar sales, taking a bigger bite with every passing year, the 2014 back-to-school shopping season has actually seen the exact opposite trend: the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) states that “the share of online as a BTS shopping venue will be 8.1% this year — a drop from last year’s 8.6%.” Overall, brick-and-mortar retail sales are projected to make up about 90% of all back-to-school shopping.

Additionally, the continued expansion of the back-to-school shopping window has some potentially significant implications for many retailers, who need to think and plan strategically to maximize their promotional efforts and optimize their merchandising. Instead of a busy couple of weeks, the back-to-school season is now a prolonged period of heightened activity: closer to months than weeks. In this edition of Retail Rap, the question remains: “Will that longer shopping window translate to more sales?” There the forecast is a little cloudier. While people do seem to be buying earlier, there are differences of opinion as to whether that means they will be buying more. ICSC and the National Retail Foundation (NRF) are expecting varying outcomes of this year’s back-to-school spending.

In this edition of Retail Rap, I consider the growing trend of consumers buying discount retail over specialty retail and how online shopping may begin to decrease and brick-and-mortar retail to increase in the coming back-to-school seasons, this year included.

Confidence Game

The economic trend for some time now has been a slow and meandering recovery. Despite improving consumer confidence numbers, a surprising first quarter GDP decline of 2.9% speaks to that uncertainty. Retail analysts and observers have a tendency to blame the weather whenever we have a bad economic quarter or when retail sales are unexpectedly sluggish, but I tend to be a little dubious of those explanations. Last winter was definitely rough enough to impact spending, but I don’t think it’s enough to explain the continued issues into the spring, which we discuss in this edition of Retail Rap.

Follow the Leadership

There have been more than a few headline-grabbing leadership transitions in the retail world recently. And, to be honest, “transitions” might be too gentle of a euphemism: some big names from some big-name brands have left, been fired, forced out, voted off the board, or otherwise pressured to step down in the last few months.

On the surface, it seems like the ousted leaders mentioned in this edition of Retail Rap left for different reasons; from Target’s CEO’s exit in the aftermath of the high-profile credit card theft/scandal last December to various CEOs leaving due to series of alleged transgressions ranging from the pedestrian to the bizarre. It strikes me that, beneath the public reasons cited for the departure of each of the CEOs discussed, there is a larger story of poor financial performance and ongoing uncertainty.

In this edition of Retail Rap, I dive into the public version of each big “transition” while questioning if something bigger is attributed to each of their exits.

The Numbers Game

Believe it or not (and I can barely believe it myself), the critical back-to-school period at the end of summer is right around the corner. While back-to-school is always big for retailers, this year’s period could be an especially important one, as 2014 has been underwhelming so far. As I started to consider the issue, what […]

Initial RECon

Every year, one of my personal highlights is the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) RECon convention in Las Vegas. It’s a chance both to connect with the fascinating leaders in our field, as well as to see a few steps into the future. RECon bills itself at the “global convention for the shopping center […]