ARE RETAILERS IN FOR A GOOD HOLIDAY SEASON?
U.S. forecasters predicting up to four per cent growth in sales
Sure, it’s barely autumn. You’ve only recently sent your kids back to school and ordered your first pumpkin spice latte of the season.
But for big retailers, the countdown to Christmas is already well underway.
In the last week or so, we’ve begun to see a trickle of forecasts and news tidbits that offer hints about how the all-important holiday shopping season is going to shape up. Here, we round up some of the key take-aways.
SALES FORECASTS
U.S. forecasters think this year will be better than 2015. Deloitte, a consulting firm, predicts sales will grow this holiday season between 3.6 and four per cent. Another consultancy, Alix-Partners, estimates the industry’s sales will tick up between 3.3 and four per cent.
That kind of performance would stack up favourably to last year, when the National Retail Federation reported that the industry notched three per cent growth. That figure wasn’t terrible, but it was sharply below the 3.7 per cent the group had forecast at the time. The industry chalked up its troubles in the 2015 season to a variety of factors: Promotional activity was high and weather was unusually warm in broad swaths of the U.S., potentially making it less enticing to buy items such as boots and gloves.
This year, analysts are noting that the economy has broadly continued to improve, and that should encourage people to shop.
TEMPORARY HIRES
Several big chains already have announced how many temporary workers they’ll add to get through the holiday crush. Macy’s plans to hire 83,000 employees, while Target is moving to add 70,000 store workers and an additional 7,500 people in its ecommerce warehouses. Kohl’s, meanwhile, plans to bring on 69,000 seasonal staffers. What’s most noteworthy about these numbers is that they are barely changed from last year. This suggests that these big-name stores aren’t expecting any particularly dramatic swings in sales or traffic.
What’s perhaps more interesting than the headline hiring numbers is the fact that Macy’s and Target are bumping up their holidayseason hiring for their ecommerce warehouses. For example, Macy’s had about 12,000 temporary workers in distribution centres last year. This year, the company is boosting that to 15,000. That’s a clue that they expect online, not stores, to be the key driver of sales growth. But distribution centre jobs can be harder to fill than store jobs because they are typically in more remote areas.
BIG BOX COMPETITORS
Keep an eye on mid-size retailers. Forecasters from Deloitte say these players may present strong competition to big-boxes this year. While Deloitte did not call out specific retailers it expects to do well, mid-size companies include the likes of men’s apparel chain Bonobos or skin care brand Aesop.
“This group has been collectively taking share from large, traditional retailers to the tune of US$200 billion in annual sales over the last five years,” said Rod Sides, Deloitte’s retail sector leader, in a press release. “The retailers that compete on differentiated products and experiences should be well positioned to outperform other competitors during the holiday season.”
U.S. ELECTION
The U.S. presidential election could play a role — albeit a small one. Analysts are not suggesting the Clinton-Trump showdown will meaningfully impact sales results. But they do suggest the election could shake up the rhythm of when people hit the mall. RetailNext said it expects to see “variability” in early November because of the contest, and Deloitte predicts the event will serve as a “temporary distraction.”
ONLINE SHOPPING
Store traffic is likely to decline — but that might not be all bad. RetailNext, an in-store analytics company, says it expects brickand-mortar store traffic to be down 11 per cent in November and five per cent in December compared to the same months last year. That may seem like a no-brainer, since people are continuing their steady march toward buying more gifts online.
STAR WARS FACTOR
Retailers and toy reviewers are beginning to release their lists of “hot” toys for the season, and Star Wars is once again expected to be a dominant presence under the tree. Disney is scheduled to release a new film titled Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, in December, so a flood of new merchandise is slated to hit stores soon. Last year, huge holiday-season sales of Star Wars gear helped propel the toy industry to its best year in more than a decade.