Retailers are expected to import “near-record volumes of merchandise” before List 4B Section 301 tariffs take effect Dec. 15 on a wide range of consumers goods from China, said the National Retail Federation Thursday. Shoppers appear ready to buy, with an NRF-Prosper Insights survey saying consumers plan to spend an average $1,047.83 this holiday season, up 4 percent from what they said they would spend last year. The biggest spenders appear to be 35-44-year-olds at $1,158.63. “Consumers are in good financial shape” and are willing to spend more this season, said CEO Matthew Shay. NRF forecasts a 3.8-4.2 percent hike in holiday retail spending vs. 2018 to between $727.9 billion and $730.7 billion. More than half (56 percent) of consumers say they will shop online, with 92 percent planning to take advantage of free shipping; 48 percent will use buy online, pick up in store or ship to store services, and 16 percent plan to use same-day delivery, said NRF. Shoppers 18-24 are the most likely to say they plan to use same-day delivery at 32 percent; same-day delivery has doubled since 2015, said NRF. Department stores lead planned shopping venues at 53 percent, followed by discount stores (51 percent), grocery (44 percent), clothing and accessories (34 percent), and electronics stores and local businesses at 23 percent each, NRF said. Thirty-nine percent of holiday shoppers said they will start holiday shopping before November, 43 percent will wait until at least November and 18 percent until December, NRF said. Sales and discounts remain the biggest factor in choosing a retailer during the holidays for 70 percent of survey respondents. Other factors are quality merchandise (59 percent), merchandise selection (57 percent), free shipping and shipping promotions (46 percent) and convenient location (44 percent), said NRF. Electronics are the fourth-most popular items on wish lists (29 percent), behind gift cards (59 percent), clothing and accessories (52 percent), and books, movies, music and videogames (35 percent). The survey of 7,782 adult consumers was Oct. 1-10, with a margin of error of plus or minus 1.2 points.
Best Buy is cutting Apple deals for its My Best Buy loyalty club members, it blogged Monday, giving them special access to discounts on select Apple products. New deals will be available each week, it said. This week’s deals offer $200 off the iPad Pro, $200 off select MacBook Pro models and $20 off the Apple Watch Series 5 with GPS and cellular. The Apple deal prices replace receiving points for purchases for My Best Buy members. Those with My Best Buy credit cards get 5 percent back in rewards (6 percent for Elite members who spend more than $1,500 in a calendar year), said the retailer. The free program is open to U.S. shoppers 13 and older; those between 13 and 17, or 18, depending on state laws, require permission of a parent or guardian.
Best Buy began taking preorders Tuesday for TCL’s 8-Series 4K Roku TVs in 65- and 75-inch screen sizes, said TCL. Best Buy is the exclusive retailer for TCL's flagship TVs, it said. TCL didn’t give a shipping date for the big-screen 2019 4K TVs, but the retailer’s website said units ordered Tuesday could be installed “as soon as” Nov. 15. Suggested retail prices are $1,999 and $2,999 for the QLED sets, announced in August (see 1908140059), which incorporate Dolby Atmos immersive sound and Dolby Vision HDR. The 75-inch model has TCL’s Quantum Contrast technology built around 25,000 mini LEDs vs. a “few hundred” for traditional LEDs found in most big-screen TVs, it said. TCL Roku TV models can “intelligently compensate for” small performance variations of components used in each TV to optimize the color accuracy, said the company, citing its “deep supply chain vertical integration.” The iPQ Engine control feature was introduced in 2018 TCL TVs; this year, the company expanded capabilities beyond an algorithm running on the TV to give users control via an app available for Android and iOS mobile devices. TCL mentioned a 75-inch 8K TV at CES but didn’t give specifics about price or availability (see 1901070058); it was the first brand to join the 8K Association, announced at the January trade show. Executives told us in August TCL is still planning 8K TVs for the 8-Series but development has taken longer than expected. At IFA last month, it showed two 8K TVs, according to reports, with availability slated for Q2.
A Best Buy Outlet store, opened recently in Houston, is the retailer's 13th, giving it a way to cut losses from product returns. At the 17713 Tomball Parkway outlet store in Houston, a shopper was able to score an 82-inch Samsung TV for $1,600, a $600 discount, reported the Houston Chronicle Thursday. Best Buy's outlet store comes a month after Conn’s opened a 2,500-square-foot clearance center inside a 650,000-square-foot warehouse near George Bush Intercontinental Airport to sell refurbished and open-box products. The National Retail Federation said in January retailers report an average 11 percent of purchases are returned annually, with an average 8 percent of returns being fraudulent. It cited analytics firm Appriss figures saying U.S. retailers’ annual losses from merchandise return fraud are estimated at $18.4 billion; fraud and abuse losses combined are estimated at $24 billion. Retail loss prevention executives “are constantly looking for new ways to battle this issue,” NRF said. Best Buy has taken advantage of shuttered storefronts for outlet locations: the Houston store moved into what was previously a Golf Galaxy location, and its Chesterfield Airport Rd. location outside of St. Louis is located in a former h.h. gregg store. Best Buy advertises the outlet stores as having clearance and open-box stock of appliances, TVs and more at prices up to 50 percent off.
The National Retail Federation expects some 20 percent of holiday sales to be generated online, said CEO Matthew Shay, playing down differences between digital and physical stores on a Thursday call. Online is “growing and substantial,” said Shay, saying retailers are increasingly taking a “holistic” view: “Customer engagement is the key metric and that can be achieved in a number of ways.” The world is becoming “increasingly agnostic as to whether it’s in store, online, or buy online, pick up in store,” he said, predicting blending and converging of the channels will “accelerate this holiday season.” BOPIS has been a “huge win” for consumers and for retailers who can use stores as a distribution point, said the executive. It’s part of an extension of brick-and-mortar retail to engage with consumers through new technologies and services that making shopping more convenient.
Conn’s will lease a 400,000-square-foot distribution center in central Florida opening within a year that will support its expansion into the state, said CEO Norm Miller on a Q2 call Tuesday. “Florida is a logical next step for our geographic expansion as it is contiguous to our existing footprint,” he said. “It’s home to over 21 million people and supports an attractive rate environment for our in-house credit offering.” Conn’s expects to open its first Florida store in the second half of the fiscal year ending January 2021, he said: “Ultimately, we believe the state of Florida could support over 40 Conn's locations, which would represent a significant expansion to our current store base.”
Citing numerous deadly shootings in the U.S. over the past month, including two at its stores in El Paso, Texas, and Southaven, Mississippi, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon told store associates in a Tuesday letter it will discontinue sales of short-barrel rifle ammunition used in some hunting rifles but also in large-capacity clips on military-style weapons; sell through and discontinue carrying handgun ammunition; and stop selling handguns in Alaska -- “marking our complete exit from handguns.” The CEO asked customers in “open carry” states to no longer openly carry firearms in Walmart or Sam’s Club stores unless they’re law enforcement officers, citing “multiple incidents since El Paso where individuals attempting to make a statement and test our response have entered our stores carrying weapons in a way that frightened or concerned our associates and customers.” McMillon also urged the nation’s leaders “to ... strengthen background checks and to remove weapons from those who have been determined to pose an imminent danger.” Walmart, which no longer sells assault weapons such as the AR-15, believes “reauthorization of the Assault Weapons ban should be debated to determine its effectiveness.” McMillon urged executive and congressional calls for action “on these common sense measures.” Walmart is offering to be a resource “in the national debate on responsible gun sales” with other retailers and is looking at ways to share technical specifications and compliance controls for its proprietary firearms sales technology platform for free that “navigates the tens of millions of possible combinations of federal, state and local laws, regulations and licensing requirements that come into effect based on where the firearm is being sold and who is purchasing it.” In the El Paso Walmart shooting, 22 of 48 shooting victims died; in Southaven, a Walmart associated killed two other associates, McMillon said: “It’s clear to us that the status quo is unacceptable.” The retailer believes the actions will slash its market share of ammunition from around 20 percent to a range of approximately 6-9 percent.
Some 23 percent of U.S. shoppers use a buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS) service because it's more secure than having products delivered at home, said Coresight Monday, citing a January National Retail Federation survey of 3,002 U.S. consumers 18 and older. Though the leading driver for BOPIS by a wide margin (64 percent) is to save money on shipping costs (see 1907030023), respondents also said they needed items right away (37 percent), received a discount or promotion to try BOPIS (36 percent), had to visit the store anyway (31 percent) and to see the product in person (20 percent).
Walmart, Target and Best Buy are the most-often used buy-online, pick-up-in-store (BOPIS) retailers in the U.S. at 50-, 34 and 22 percent, reported Coresight Research Wednesday, but only 28 percent of U.S. retailers offer the shopping option vs. 64 percent in the U.K. and 51 percent in France. Many U.S. retailers continue to face multiple challenges managing BOPIS, with significant difficulties in logistics and inventory tracking (46 percent), managing and training store staff (22 percent), fraud and customer information security (16 percent), and realizing return on investment (6 percent), it said. Some 38 percent of retailers adopted the BOPIS model to bring customers into stores hoping they will make additional purchases, 32 percent do it to be competitive, 16 percent are catering to millennials, and 12 percent use BOPIS as an edge over Amazon, said the report. Sixty-four percent of consumers use purchase options to avoid shipping fees, it said.
Klipsch moved from multiple regional distributors to a single-source model, emailed a spokesperson following the company’s Thursday announcement it signed SnapAV as its exclusive national custom installation distribution partner. The speaker company had been working with more than seven regional distributors “with varying levels of support” prior to the agreement when “SnapAV reached out to us looking to enhance their speaker selection,” she said: “We are happy to now offer their award-winning service to dealers.” The partnership is designed to offer broader and more premium audio solutions to custom integrators while giving SnapAV an additional speaker line to supplement its own Episode brand. Klipsch speakers will be available on the SnapAV website and via local distribution locations in August, it said. Mike Jordan, SnapAV vice president-audio, said, “We know dealers today carry more than one speaker brand,” and the choice allows them to shop “all their audio needs conveniently in one place.”