The National Retail Federation applauded U.S. holiday retail store sales in a Friday news release. But NRF said “weather, inventory challenges, advances in consumer technology and the deep discounts that started earlier in the season” have carried into January. For the holiday season, retail store sales grew 3 percent over holiday 2014 to $626 billion, said CEO Matthew Shay, calling the growth “solid” despite “unforeseen weather events” and an “extreme deflationary retail environment.” Despite the season’s challenges, “the industry rallied, consumers responded and sales still grew at a healthy rate,” said Shay. December retail sales -- excluding automobiles, gas stations and restaurants -- slipped 0.2 percent from November but grew 3.1 percent year over year, it said. Non-store holiday sales grew 9 percent to $105 billion, it said. NRF Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz said December results “remind us just how significant of an impact unusual weather can have on retail and overall economic activity.” He cited “prospects for improvement,” including recent job gains that will lift income and earnings and a “healthy housing market.” The Department of Commerce said Friday that December retail sales decreased 0.2 percent sequentially and grew 2.2 percent year over year. December sales, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences but not for price changes, were $448 billion, said Commerce. For the year, electronics and appliance store revenue, unadjusted, dropped 2.4 percent to $104 billion, said the report.
Wedbush Securities projected Q4 domestic comp store sales for Best Buy to fall to 0.8 percent, versus 2.8 percent last year, said analyst Michael Pachter in a research note Monday before the retailer’s Thursday release of its holiday sales data. Best Buy “likely lost share in brick and mortar sales while improving its online sales,” said Pachter, saying operating margin was under pressure due to price-cutting and higher advertising costs to drive holiday traffic. Citing data from RetailNext, ShopperTrak and SpendingPulse, Pachter said brick-and-mortar retail sales fell 10 percent over the Black Friday weekend, while online sales were up 20 percent over the year-ago period. “We think Best Buy continued to benefit over the holiday as economic tailwinds persisted from low oil prices, new home starts, the RadioShack bankruptcy, and weakness at Sears,” said Pachter. But Best Buy likely lost some share from brick-and-mortar competitors while its online sales likely improved as retail sales continued a shift to online, he said. If Best Buy's overall domestic sales come in roughly flat as Wedbush predicts, “the company will have managed to come close to maintaining its share during a difficult quarter,” said Pachter. The analyst, which maintained a neutral rating for the retailer, expects a “reversal to share losses” in fiscal 2017 “when Best Buy faces difficult comps.”
December sales at Conn's jumped 2.5 percent to $137.5 million despite a 20.5 percent same-store sales decline in consumer electronics, it said Thursday. Excluding the videogame and digital camera categories Conn's recently exited, same-store CE sales fell 5.8 percent, it said. December was hurt "by an expanded promotional time frame in the marketplace during November, which likely pulled sales forward into that month," the chain said. "Sales performance continued to be softer in our markets with greater oil industry concentration, consistent with the relative performance experienced since October."
For those stumped on holiday gift lists, Best Buy posted suggestions Friday listing top tech gifts broken down by men, women, kids and families and then by subcategory. The top three gifts for techie men: Bose QuietComfort 25 noise-canceling headphones, 360fly panoramic video camera and Apple Watch. For male sports lovers: the Sharp 43-inch smart HDTV with Roku, Fitbit Charge HR and FIFA 16 or Madden 16 videogames. More for gamers: Xbox One, PS4 and Fallout 4, it said. Top tech gifts for women included Christian Siriano accessories, a Kate Spade New York phone case + wristlet gift box, WeMo-enabled slow cooker, Moto 360 smartwatch and Fitbit Charge HR. Tech gifts for kids: a Sphero BB-8 droid, CreoPop 3D printing pen, ReTrak Animalz headphones, LeapPad Platinum tablet and Fujifilm Instax camera. Suggestions for family gifts: Google Chromecast, Microsoft Surface Book, Sonos Play:1 speakers, GoPro Hero4 Silver, Whistle GPS pet tracker and Fitbark pet activity tracker.
Conn’s doesn’t deny the possibility that its decision earlier this year to drop low-profit digital cameras, videogames and tablets from its sales mix may hurt the chain’s efforts to lure foot traffic during the holiday selling season, new CEO Norm Miller said on a Tuesday earnings call. Even though unit sales in those abandoned products were “significant” during past holiday selling seasons, “the margins that those products were sold at still created downward pressure from an overall retail gross-margin standpoint,” said Miller, a former Sears Automotive executive who became Conn’s CEO in early September. Eliminating those categories from the mix “could have, arguably, an impact from a traffic or a sales standpoint,” he said. “But we feel confident with the promotions we have in place and what we’re doing within the other categories -- from a TV standpoint and from a furniture standpoint, and certainly what we’ve seen in November -- we’ve been very pleased with the traffic that we’ve been seeing in our stores.” Conn’s believes dropping those categories has had “minimal, if any, impact” on foot traffic, he said. For November, excluding the discontinued products, same-store sales of CE goods at Conn’s jumped 6.4 percent from the same month a year earlier, including an 8.4 percent same-store sales increase in the TV category, the chain said. Conn’s didn’t specifically mention the impact of Ultra HD on its TV sales, but said it benefited from a shift in its TV mix to higher-margin sets.
Azione Unlimited added five dealer members, bringing its dealer ranks to 135, it said Tuesday. The goal for 2016 is to reach 200 members, said President Richard Glikes. New members are Desert Sound and Security, Phoenix; Echo Workshop, Houston; Precision Media Solutions, Lakewood, Colorado; Tucker & Tucker/Audio and Video by Design, Scarborough, Maine; and Waara Technologies, Traverse City, Michigan. Glikes also said Azione’s discounted healthcare recently launched, and it will announce additional initiatives in coming weeks. Azione has 42 vendor members.
Walmart is still battling “considerable headwinds” in its entertainment department, which include CE products, Walmart U.S. CEO Greg Foran said Tuesday on an earnings call. “A slow adoption of new technology in televisions and the shift from post-paid to installment wireless plans contributed to disappointing sales results” in Walmart's Q3 ended Sept. 30, said Foran, who offered few specifics and took no questions. “We're working on improving our operating model in this area both in terms of service to our customers and in the layout of the department,” he said. Though Walmart has made “some progress” this year, “it will take time to get this department where it needs to be,” he said.
Houston-based Conn's announced the opening of its 100th location, a 52,000-square-foot HomePlus store in North Las Vegas, Nevada, as part of its goal of becoming a national retailer. The company is on track to open 15-18 stores in the fiscal year ending Jan. 31 and plans to open 25 stores in fiscal 2017 on its way to a goal of 500 locations, it said. HomePlus stores specialize in consumer electronics, furniture, mattresses, appliances and office products.
Toys “R” Us will open its stores at 5 p.m. Thanksgiving Day and keep them open until 11 p.m. Black Friday, it said in a Monday announcement. That scheduling is roughly the same as last year, the chain said. "Each year, we carefully evaluate customer feedback and consumer insights to determine how we can best help those customers eager to get a jumpstart on crossing off items on their gift lists," the company said. Specific details on its Black Friday doorbuster offers will be released soon, it said.
Same-store CE sales at Conn’s fell 11.9 percent in October and 9.1 percent for Q3 ended Oct. 31, it said in a Thursday announcement. With videogame products and digital cameras factored out, same-store CE sales fell 2.9 percent in October, Conn’s said. Same-store sales in the TV category fell 3.5 percent in October on lower unit sales that were “partially offset” by higher average selling prices from the increased mix of Ultra HD sets, it said.