Target expanded its store-within-a-store concept Thursday, announcing a partnership with Apple that expands product offerings and doubles Apple’s footprint in Target stores. The partnership will start online and begin rolling out in 17 stores this month, with the remainder to be in place by fall, said the retailer. Stores slated for the first round of Apple expansions are in Monticello, Minnesota; San Jose; Oklahoma City; Allen, Austin, Hurst, Irving and San Antonio, Texas; Orlando, Miami, Clearwater and Gainesville, Florida; North Wales, Pennsylvania; Newark, Delaware; Woburn, Massachusetts; Nashua, New Hampshire; and Latham, New York. Additional locations will be announced in fall, Target said. A search at Target.com showed AppleCare+ is available at Target stores and “coming soon” to Target.com. Customers can get Target gift cards for used electronics as part of Apple services, it said, and they can chat live with an expert or call for phone support from 8 a.m.-midnight. It wasn’t clear how or if the linkup with Target would affect Apple’s relationship with other retailers. Best Buy remains an authorized service center for Apple product repairs, said the website Thursday. On Best Buy's Thursday earnings call (see story, this issue), CEO Corie Barry volunteered that the electronics retailer has an arrangement with Samsung; customers can get tech support from Best Buy employees when shopping at Samsung.com. Target called the Apple destination a way for customers to experience new products through demonstrations and “knowledgeable Target Tech Consultants, who will receive specialized training from Apple.” Target has sold select Apple products for 15 years. The new initiative includes “enhanced service and expanded offerings,” said Christina Hennington, chief growth officer. Target compared the program to others it has with national brands Disney, Ulta Beauty and Levi Strauss. Apple and Target didn’t respond to questions Thursday.
Fry’s Electronics attributed the “difficult decision” to shut permanently to “changes in the retail industry” and the “challenges” of the COVID-19 pandemic. Fry’s at its peak ran 31 stores in nine states, said the retailer. It will implement the shutdown “through an orderly wind down process that it believes will be in the best interests of the Company, its creditors, and other stakeholders,” it said. This began Wednesday, to “avoid additional liabilities, minimize the impact on our customers, vendors, landlords and associates, and maximize the value of the Company’s assets,” it said. Fry’s didn’t respond to questions.
Government stimulus checks gave the U.S. economy an unexpected boost in January, said the National Retail Federation Wednesday, commenting on a U.S. Census Bureau report saying retail sales grew 5.9% from December and 7.4% year on year. Electronics and appliance stores were up 14.7% month-over-month but down 4.1% year on year. Momentum from the holiday sales season carried over into January, said NRF Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz, noting the lack of a usual spending falloff post-holiday; the increase was “even better than expected.” Consumers have “plenty of purchasing power,” said Kleinhenz: “Confidence is building thanks to the availability of COVID-19 vaccines and states and local governments are beginning to remove restrictions on economic activity." He expects consumer spending to build on the momentum. CEO Matthew Shay called January sales a “very strong start for consumers and retailers” as the NRF looks ahead to a “critical year curbing the global pandemic and strengthening our economic recovery.”
Target revealed nine candidate designs for the retail bag of the future Tuesday, as part of its participation in the Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag. Each entry has the goal of reducing plastic waste and creating affordable, end-to-end solutions that are “guest-friendly” and environmentally sound, said the retailer. The winning designs were selected via the consortium’s Beyond the Bag initiative, which also included CVS Health and Walmart. The Consortium and member retailers will work with winners to test the bag designs for user experience, performance, health and safety, recyclability and compostability, it said. Among the potential designs are Sway’s seaweed-derived type that removes carbon from the environment when it’s made rather than adding to it; it’s said to match the strength and performance of existing plastic bags. Chico Bag’s lightweight and compact reusable bag can hold up to 25 pounds; the service allows customers to borrow bags on-site as part of the sharing economy. CircularID by Eon uses the IoT to help retailers track inventory, manage reverse logistics and understand how bags are used by monitoring impact throughout the bag’s lifespan. Domtar is developing a bio-based, recyclable material of 100% cellulose fiber that is said to be stronger and more stretchable than paper bags. Goatote is a kiosk system that provides easy access to clean reusable bags, offering a reusable alternative for customers who forgot their own bag. Connected-USE uses IoT technology to connect reusable “smart” bags at a store to digital systems enabled by RFID tags and QR codes, allowing retailers to reward customers with points each time they use reusable bags.
Electronics and appliance sales inched up 0.7% in January vs. a total retail sales average increase of 9.2%, excluding autos and gas, Mastercard reported Thursday. Online sales grew 62% vs. a year ago. The report cited momentum from a stronger-than-expected holiday season carrying through the month with consumer spending “buoyed by an infusion of stimulus payments,” mostly in the first two weeks. Furniture and furnishings grew 17%. Consumers are starting to refresh their wardrobes again, with specialty apparel online sales jumping 53% in the month, though the overall sector was down 4%, said the company. The department stores segment saw its first year-on-year sales increase since 2019, boosted by strong online sales, Mastercard said.
Walmart will begin rolling out Western Union money transfer services at its stores this spring, it said Tuesday. Services will include domestic and international money transfers, bill payments and money orders. Customers will have the option of their money transfers paid out “in minutes” across more than 550,000 retail locations or into billions of bank accounts, wallets or cards, said the retailer.
Fewer consumers were last-minute shoppers this extended holiday season, reported Mastercard Saturday. The Monday before Christmas, which ranked third in 2019 holiday spending, didn’t make the list of top 10 shopping days in this year's Nov. 1-Dec. 24 period, it said. Dec. 11 and Dec. 12, ranked fourth and third this year, were buoyed by “guaranteed by Christmas” shipping offers, said Mastercard. Small Business Saturday, Nov. 28, ranked second in overall holiday season spend, it said; Cyber Monday was fifth. Holiday retail sales Oct. 11-Dec. 24 increased 3% vs. the 2019 span, it said, while total retail sales for the traditional Nov. 1-Dec. 24 stretch rose 2.4%. Online sales jumped 47% Nov. 1-Dec. 24 and 49% Oct. 11-24, marking record online growth, it said. E-commerce was 19.7% of overall retail sales, up from 13.4% last year. Americans continued home-focused purchases during the holiday sales season: Home furnishings led all sectors with 16.2% growth, 31% of it online. Home improvement sales increased 14% overall, 79.7% online. Electronics and appliance sales grew 6%, while apparel sales dropped 19%. Department stores' overall sales fell 10.2%, while online sales grew 3.3%, “reinforcing the importance of omnichannel offerings,” said the report. Though Black Friday sales were down 16% year on year, it was still the top sales day of the season. The report measures U.S. retail sales spending across all payment types, including cash and checks.
When a new retail normal emerges post-COVID-19 pandemic, brands need to be ready to reach shoppers directly in their homes and through the use of new touch points, reported Walmart Media Group. It’s important to integrate communication, technology and data across platforms; Walmart measures the impact of sales across e-commerce, brick-and-mortar and hybrid shopping trips that are a mix of both, it said. Central to its ad-technology platform is the ability to measure the effect of digital advertising on total sales, both on the retailer’s site and app and in physical stores. This includes recently added touch points in Walmart stores, it said, such as an improved 4K TV wall, ads on self-checkout screens, short-form videos on shoppers’ devices during curbside pickup, and geo-aware ads that appear in the Walmart app’s store mode. “Every time a shopper buys something either online or in a physical store -- or searches or views a product on one of our digital properties -- we take these billions of shopping signals and use them to determine how best to influence these shopping journeys,” said Vice President-Strategy and Transformation Stephen Howard-Sarin. Walmart uses the first-party data to “tell brands which shoppers buy cat food or dog food, how many times the relevant households saw their ad, and whether those households bought their brand online or walked into our store and made a purchase.” It can also tell whether households targeted with ads “behaved differently than those who were not.”
No membership is required for Target customers who want to use contactless same-day pickup and delivery options until 5 p.m. local time Christmas Eve, said the retailer Monday. Choices include order pickup and same-day delivery through Shipt, it said.
The share of retail workers suffering pay cuts has increased for the past six weeks, “not a good sign for holiday sales,” said a Morning Consult report released Monday and based on a poll of 15,000 U.S. adults. Seventy-three percent expressed worry about the economy, 71% were trying to spend less money, 58% were worried about finances during the holidays, 54% were trying to pay down debt, 46% were worried about job security and 40% expected to have lower household income; a quarter had higher household income than last year. On health worries, 71% were concerned that others weren’t taking the coronavirus seriously while shopping, 70% were worried about being too close to others, 54% were concerned about delivery speed or delays, and 29% worried about having time to shop. Some 45% of those polled Oct. 30-Nov. 1 expected to spend less on gifts this year vs. 39% polled Sept. 1-3. Only 14% expected to spend more, up from 12% in September. Forty-seven percent planned to shop online vs. 22% in store; 31% expected to shop in store and online equally. December is “the true cliff” for unemployment benefits, with 37% due to expire then, following 9% this month, said a poll of 200 U.S. adults.