Traffic to outlet malls is at a two-year peak, with 26% of shoppers in the U.S. heading to an outlet in July 2016—up four percentage points since March, when outlet traffic hit its lowest point since June 2015—according to Cowen Consumer Tracker Survey data cited by CNBC.
Millennials’ thrifty ways influenced the acceleration, with sportswear outlet stores including Nike, Adidas and Under Armour among the biggest beneficiaries of the renewed customer activity, according to Footwear News.
“Our teams delivered a strong second quarter, with better-than-expected revenue and profitability in both our domestic and international businesses,” he said in a statement. “We saw continued positive momentum in our online sales—delivering a second straight quarter of nearly 24% growth. We also continued to deliver cost savings and drive efficiencies in the business, a discipline that is critical to our ability to invest in our future.”
That future looks bright, said Charlie O’Shea, an analyst at Moody’s Investors Service. “[Best Buy’s Q2 turnaround] is evidence that a well-managed brick-and-mortar retailer with a well-thought-out strategy that successfully utilizes its physical assets can thrive as it transitions to a true multichannel retailer,” O’Shea told Bloomberg.
We all know the economy’s been taking a few gut-punches in recent years, and stories about “job creation” have become a staple in the news. Complicating th
Consumers aren’t afraid to spend these days, but as Friday’s retail-sales report will likely show, they are also becoming more discerning about what, where and how they make their purchases.
Sales at nonstore retailers—including Jet.com Inc., which Wal-Mart agreed to acquire for $3.3 billion, and Amazon—rose 10.6% in the first half of 2016 versus a year earlier. That included a 14% surge in June compared with a year before, the biggest monthly increase in 10 years.
Meanwhile, department-store sales fell about 4% through the first six months of the year, their poorest showing since the financial crisis. The disparity between store and nonstore sales was the greatest in 16 years, according to the Commerce Department.
To keep Under Armour moving forward CEO Kevin Plank announced three key strategic initiatives designed to reach and engage shoppers. See what the retailer has planned to continue to gain market share.
Order a meal these days and there’s a good chance you’re using some kind of electronic device—a smartphone, tablet, computer or even a touch screen at the restaurant.
Over the last year or so in the US, a lot of the plastic credit cards we carry around every day have been replaced by new one with chips embedded in them. The chips are supposed to make your credit and debit cards more secure—a good thing!—but there’s one little secret no one wants to admit: The US’
Interesting that bars lose the ability for running tabs with C&P cards. Also agreed on the banks opting for chip and signature being a fiasco. Ostensibly to save the consumer from having to remember multiple pins (and defeat safety and use only one pin) but mostly it saves the banks a ton of money
While Amazon made it through the dot com bubble to dominate e-commerce retail, many of the pureplay online retailers from that time are no more, with Drugstore.com being just the latest example. First launched in 1999 as a website selling health and beauty products, the company went public that year at $65 a share, according to the Seattle Times. Drugstore.com entered an agreement with Rite Aid in 1999 that allowed customers to pick up online prescription purchases at Rite Aid brick-and-mortar stores, but reportedly never turned a profit. Over a decade later, Drugstore.com was purchased by Walgreens for $429 million as part of its online expansion strategy.
Drugstore.com isn’t the first e-commerce acquisition by Walgreens that didn’t pan out. Earlier this year, Walgreens sold Skinstore.com to U.K. online retailer Hut Group, the Wall Street Journal reported. The shedding of these websites is part of a broader move by Walgreens to cut costs and focus on its own omnichannel.
Over the past year, Walgreens’ strategy has been to focus on developing new omnichannel capabilities on its own website, Spokesman Phil Caruso said in a statement on Thursday. “We have been focusing on building new omni-channel capabilities on Walgreens.com with initiatives that improved assortment and website user experiences, enhanced our digital coupon capabilities to provide more customer value and added digital tools into our stores to elevate our shopping experiences,” Caruso said.
“They want to make sure they can invest more of the equity in Walgreens.com,” Brian Owens, a director at Kantar Retail, told the Wall Street Journal. “Drugstore.com and Beauty.com are distractions.”
Earlier this month, executive vice chairman and CEO Stefano Pessina said Walgreens Boots Alliance managed to meet its goal of cutting $1 billion in expenses since the 2014 merger with U.K. pharmacy giant Boots.
The news comes as Walgreens tries to see through its proposed merger with U.S. drugstore rival Rite Aid for $9.4 billion. A few weeks ago, Walgreens expressed confidence that the merger would go through this year. The company said it will shed 500 stores as part of the merger, a number far below many analysts’ expectations. The company reported U.S. Q3 same-store sales rose 3.9% over the last year, thanks in part to increases in Medicare prescriptions.
