Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Will retailers’ holidays be happy?
Countdown starts for big merchants
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 takeaways.
Forecasters think this year will be better than 2015. Deloitte, a consulting firm, predicts sales will grow this holiday season between 3.6 and 4 percent. Another consultancy, AlixPartners, estimates the industry’sales will tick up between 3.3 and 4 percent.
That kind of performance would stack up favorably to last year, when the National Retail Federation reported that the industry notched 3 percent growth. That figure wasn’t terrible, but it was sharply below the 3.7 percent 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 country, 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.
There are tea leaves to read in retailers’ plans for their seasonal workforces. 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 e-commerce 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 holiday-season hiring for their e-commerce warehouses.
For example, Macy’s had about 12,000 temporary workers in distribution centers 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. By aiming to put more manpower in the warehouses, these retailers could be in for a talent challenge: Distribution center jobs can be harder to fill than store jobs because they are typically in more remote areas.
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 skincare brand Aesop.
“This group has been collectively taking share from large, traditional retailers to the tune of $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.”
The 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.”
Meanwhile, AlixPartners said that when a presidential election has appeared to impact sales in the past, the drag has typically come in September and October, with a bounce-back effect occurring in November and December. McCarran International Airport spokeswoman, said the airport is gearing up to provide wayfinding and other signs, along with recorded announcements in Mandarin and Cantonese.
The plan will also involve creating a WeChat presence for McCarran that capitalizes on synergies with the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority’s WeChat efforts and an Ambassador program centered on certain international flights.
The Ambassador program will include the hiring of multilingual representatives that will assist tourists when they arrive.
WeChat is a smartphone application accessible by quick response code that will provide important information in a traveler’s primary language, things like mass transit schedules, hotel information, tourist attractions and — most important — information on how to handle an emergency.
Southern Nevada’s air tour industry has been way ahead of the curve in accommodating foreign visitors. Tourists who fly over nearby national parks are issued headsets that provide tour information in a number of languages, including Mandarin. Those companies recognized long ago that flying over the Grand Canyon would be a “bucket list” event for people who have come from so far away, so they prepared to provide the best experience possible.
Many of the city’s major resorts have employees on their staffs who are fluent in a variety of languages. Expect the need for more of them to grow.
Although some strides have been made to be China-ready, there are still a number of features Southern Nevada is lacking.
Signs are a big one. It’s great that McCarran is looking to boost its Chinese-language signs, but that’s something that needs to occur along all our major streets and roads. The Nevada Department of Transportation, Clark County and the cities of Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Henderson and Boulder City need to strategize on how they can provide information to foreigners on the streets.
Sure, it isn’t possible to post signs in every language that exists. But for Las Vegas, English, Spanish and Mandarin would be a good start. It’s also possible to post electronic signs that rotate phrases through a series of languages to deliver critically important messaging.
Any operation that has a touch point with the public should consider hiring people who are fluent in Chinese languages. Tourism destinations and attractions are a no-brainer. Some of the city’s exclusive restaurants should make that consideration.
It also would be wise for the Metropolitan Police Department and other first-responder units to have people who will be able to communicate with visitors.
As one with firsthand experience of recently traveling abroad to a destination where Mandarin is the dominant language, I can say that offering signs and representatives who speak English was a welcome that will make me want to return again. And that’s the bottom line. Once they’ve come the first time, we want them to come back and bring their friends.