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Jeff Green Partners

A LEADER IN RETAIL REAL ESTATE FEASIBILITY

jgreen@jeffgreenpartners.com

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Jeff Green Partners

Wal-Mart is the most unpopular company in America

Quentin Fottrell / MarketWatch – The most unpopular company among consumers is not a cable company. And it’s not an airline.

The honor goes to big box retailer Wal-Mart , which placed last on the list of the University of Michigan’s American Consumer Satisfaction Index. On a list of 230 household brands surveyed, Wal-Mart scored 54 out of a possible 100, just behind Time Warner Cable (56), Comcast (57) and United Airlines (60). The index scores each company based on more than 70,000 interviews conducted annually, and uses a customer satisfaction score, 10 economic sector scores, 43 industry scores, over 230 company scores, and more than 200 federal or local government service scores.

Never Going Back: Why Black Friday will never be the same

If you’re like me, and you were curious about how Black Friday hype translated into retail sales, your head is spinning right about now. Because the flurry of post-Black Friday news reports is packed with conflicting information, data that doesn’t seem to add up, and wildly variant conclusions about whether the Black Friday weekend was a “success” or a “disappointment” and about what is in store for the rest of the holiday season. In this edition of Retail Rap, we discuss the new kind of Black Friday, and what that will mean for retailers and consumers alike.

As the impact of Black Friday is being diluted and dispersed over several days, Cyber Monday has also lost some of its punch. With customers shopping online throughout the weekend and throughout the following week (“Cyber Week”), the motivation to make purchases on Monday is less urgent. As an industry, we still look to Black Friday as if it means something. But is that meaning changing?

Join me in this edition of Retail Rap. I’d love to hear your thoughts and observations from the holiday weekend. Did you do your shopping from the comfort of home, or did you head out to the stores? What changes did you notice compared to Black Fridays in the past?

Holi-delays?

Will the holiday shopping season be affected by chaotic, disruptive and potentially costly delays and shipping problems? That sounds like an extreme outcome, but it’s on my mind after reading a recent article in Women’s Wear Daily (WWD) entitled Panic at the Ports as Holiday Looms. In this edition of Retail Rap, we discuss how the WWD’s piece outlines the drama unfolding at West Coast ports like Los Angeles and Long Beach, where congestion, delays, and an extended “union and management dispute” could put a serious dent in the ability of retailers and brands to get their holiday shipping completed on time and on budget.

If you want an unlikely example of how carriers are working to supplement their existing infrastructure and capabilities, consider this: no less than Amazon is now using the much-criticized and oft-struggling U.S. Postal Service to help with weekend and holiday deliveries! To me, that’s a little bit like the New York Yankees looking to the Bad News Bears for pitching help.

Join me in this edition of Retail Rap, and tell me: What do you think? Will 2014 be the year that a dysfunctional shipping system left a lump of coal in the retail industry’s stocking?

Black Friday shopping frenzy creeps early and stays late this year

Bethany Clough / The Fresno Bee – Black Friday is different this year.

Not only is it really Black Thursday — also known as Thanksgiving — because so many stores are opening earlier than ever but the debate over it is louder than ever.

And Black Friday is not the traditional kickoff to the holiday shopping season anymore, with deals coming early and continuing well past the one day.

“Black Friday isn’t what Black Friday used to be. It’s bled into Thanksgiving,” says Phoenix-based retail consultant Jeff Green of Jeff Green Partners.

An estimated 140 million people will shop between Thursday and Sunday, about 61% of all people surveyed in a National Retail Federation/Prosper Insights & Analytics survey.

Analysts Talk About The Impact E-commerce Has On Holiday Shopping Trends

Mark Brodle / 91.5 KJZZ – Are you done with your holiday shopping yet? Based on when some stores started their Black Friday deals, you could have been done before your turkey was fully digested.

Joining me now to talk about the lengthening of the holiday shopping season is Phoenix-based retail analyst Jeff Green.

Jeff referenced Cyber Monday and as e-commerce has grown, so has the impact of taxes collected from online sales. But, they’re not collected uniformly across the country, and Congress’ efforts to change that have so far been unsuccessful.

Bill Fox is the Director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Tennessee and said in many cases, Cyber Monday is one of the most wonderful times of the year.

Lower gasoline prices fail to spur consumer spending

David Conti / TribLIVE Business – The sight of Western Pennsylvania stations selling gasoline for less than $3 a gallon five weeks before Christmas should bring joy to the holiday.

For some people, it’s not enough to fuel a shopping binge.

“It’s meant I can put more gas in my truck because it was so expensive for so long,” Erick Williams, 43, of Brighton Heights said as he filled up at an Exxon station in the North Side. “In the next couple weeks, if it stays this way, maybe we’ll have some extra left over.”