The last weekend for Christmas shopping starts tomorrow and Super Saturday, as it’s known, is expected to include more of the heavy promotional pricing that has been the order of the day this holiday season. This year’s strength in retail has primarily come from online sellers, with Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) perhaps benefiting the most. Brick-and-mortar retailers with strong e-commerce platforms also have performed well.
That’s the report released Thursday from retail research firm Retail Metrics. The analysts have forecast same-store sales will increase 0.7% in December, and the two-month period including November is expected to see same-store sales growth of 1.2%. Retail Metrics is actually a bit more optimistic than Wall Street, where the consensus same-store sales forecast calls for a quarterly increase of just 0.5%.
Warm weather, especially in the heavily populated Northeast, gets a lot of blame for the weak growth. Consumers are also spending on new cars, big-screen TVs and “experiences,” according to Retail Metrics:
With brick and mortar traffic down and retailers also competing for holiday dollars with service providers, experiences such as travel, concert, show, and sporting goods tickets, restaurants, and non-traditional holiday categories like appliances and cars, our expectation is for promotions [to] accelerate as we move closer to the Christmas holiday.
There are some brick-and-mortar stores where traffic has been good: Bath & Body Works and Pink stores, both divisions of L Brands Inc. (NYSE: LB), have been among the busiest mall-based stores, according to Retail Metrics. American Eagle Outfitters Inc. (NYSE: AEO) gets a nod among teen apparel retailers, and Macy’s Inc. (NYSE: M) “has consistently seen stronger traffic” than other department stores.
Retail Metrics also noted that Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) have had “decent traffic but look to be softer than last year.” Both stores do have solid e-commerce platforms, though, and that might be a contributing factor to the lower in-store traffic.
So far, at least, retailers have resisted what Retail Metrics calls “panic markdowns,” even though promotional pricing has been in the 30% to 50% range. It could be, however, that if the final holiday shopping weekend is a bust that some serious bargains could suddenly appear in the last few days before Christmas.
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