I was having a conversation with a colleague of mine who suggested that it would be interesting to see a list of all retailers’ Twitter accounts on one page. We agreed that it would be interesting to see how different retailers are using the same medium – are they promoting sales, offering ideas for their market, reaching out to customers?
Another mixed month for retail sales. While some retailers rebounded and look to go into Back to School on a positive note, it was another dark month for some mall and teen retailers.
Wal-Mart beat expectations with a 5.8% increase in June (showing 6.1% increase at their US name-brand stores and a 4.6% increase at their Sam’s Club locations). Target ended up in positive territory with a 0.4% uptick in same store sales. Costco showed a 9% increase, Kohl’s beat estimates with a 2.3% increase, and even mall retailer Aeropostale showed gains with a 12% increase in June.
The month was not as kind to mall and teel retailers such as Gap (company down 7%), Abercrombie (down 3%), and American Eagle (down 11%).
June’s numbers have been posted to Retail Numbers, which allows you to chart and track the retail industry monthly same-store sales.
More coverage from Fox Business and the Associated Press.
Photo above from Flickr user James@mannequindisplay. com, used under Creative Commons.
Last week, Paul EcEnany posted about his unpleasant experience at Kohl’s (see: Hurricane Kohl’s at Hee-Haw Marketing). As a shopper, he wasn’t pleased with what he saw when he walked around the store. He didn’t just leave the store and vow to no longer shop there, he took photos with his cameraphone and went home to blog about it.
Oh how the times have changed.
In this generation, we’re now used to real-time access to everything. The Internet keeps changing the way we go about our daily routines. If you had an unpleasant shopping experience in the past, you would be resigned to phone calls and word of mouth. Maybe not much has changed, except phones have been replaced with e-mail and blogs and chatrooms allow your word of mouth to go from your neighbor to the world.
How come major retailers aren’t reacting to this quicker?
Paul’s tepid e-mail response from Kohl’s corporate is a great example of why retailers need to adapt their thinking to put themselves into positions where they can communicate with customers more efficiently. After Paul wrote his post, links have appeared all throughout the blogosphere, including Seth’s blog and Brand Experience Lab. Tomorrow, David Polinchock from Brand Experience Lab is part of a forum, Strategic Branding Influence, at the National Retail Federation trade show, and he’s using Kohl’s as an example.
Mark Collier has a great post over at Daily Fix called Where Are The Community Evangelists?
He says:
If Kohls had a community evangelist, s/he could have discovered Paul’s blog post, and then reached out to him, and served as a facilitator to make sure that Paul’s experience, and his concerns, were voiced to Kohls’ management. That way, the “right people” could have been made aware of the condition of the stores that their customers are visiting, and then addressed correcting those issues. Finding out about such problems from a community evangelist sure beats finding out about them as a member of the audience of the keynote at a National Retail Federation conference.
When are the big retailers going to learn and adapt? I don’t see any major American chain retailer using the web to effectively build customer relationships. Of course you can click, buy, and get your goods. But I don’t see anyone embracing the consumer online as well as they could be. I hope that this case can be a wakeup call to Kohl’s and others in the industry.
Listen to your customers – not only the ones who take the time to fill out the web survey that gets printed with their receipt.
In the interest of full disclosure – I work for Kohl’s. I work at the store level, far from any place that would give me the authority to comment on how or why Kohl’s is publically handling the situation like this. I do not write this post as an employee of Kohl’s, I write it as a consumer who is not entirely happy with the disconnect between retailers and their consumers online.
Let me say this first, I love Atlantic City. I do enjoy playing cards and sitting in front of an Elvis slot machine. Although my last few trips haven’t been very successful, I have enjoyed watching the development of The Pier at Caesars unfold.
The Pier at Caesars is a $200 million redevelopment project of the former Ocean One Mall on the beach in Atlantic City. Boasting a mix of high and mid level retailers (Coach, Gucci and Louis Vuitton meet Ann Taylor, Quiksilver, Gymboree and Victoria’s Secret), this mall has been eagerly anticipated by tourists and residents alike.
The mall officially opened on Tuesday, although it is only the first phase. About a dozen of the ninety stores are open, with none of the resturaunts open yet. Developers say that more stores will open throughout the Summer with everything open by Labor Day. Work is still being done on some of the more decorative pieces, including fountains and billboards.
A good overview is the mall and the opening is available from the Associated Press: Once Tacky Resort City Gets More Class. The Press of Atlantic City has another, localized article about the opening which says that opening day was not all that impressive to some shoppers.
The Pier at Caesars is the second major retail project the town has. 2005 saw the opening of The Walk, aka the Atlantic City Outlets. This $76 million retail development project is beautiful – a great mix of stores that seems to be doing extremely well. From Gap to Polo Ralph Lauren to coffee at Starbucks, I have enjoyed walking this outdoor mall. Last year, the Baltimore Sun had an excellent article about the retail development of Atlantic City, with a focus on The Walk.
With all of this retail development in a city that is increasingly focusing on non-casino offerings, Atlantic City has become a great place to visit for those who are interested in visual merchandising and creative retail solutions. I have already enjoyed trips to The Walk and I am very interested in going to see The Pier at Caesars. I believe shoppers and tourists will respond well to the mix of stores available in Atlantic City.
This isn’t the end of large scale, non-casino development in Atlantic City. I can’t wait to see what the next few years bring.
Minyanville has posted a great roundup of all of the retail sales reports for April. They’ve got comp percentages for just about everyone and snarky comments for about half. I love it.
Retailers benefitted from the late Easter and most were really able to drive sales through the roof. Great numbers for some of the chains, not so great for others. Department and discount stores mainly show positive results: Federated down .8, Target up 10.4, Wal-mart up 6.8, Kohls up 13.4, Jc Penny up 2.6, Dillards up 10, Nordstrom up 7.3. Teen specialty retailers continue to show positive results: Abercrombie up another 17, Aeropostale up 8.4, American Eagle up 19, Pacsun up 14. The rest of the mall is hit and miss with Ann Taylor up 10.9, Children’s Place up 22, Claire’s Stores up 9 but Gap continues it’s downward trend, down 3 and Hot Topic was down 6.5.
Generally a pretty positive month but those with few suprises in retailers who didn’t beat their estimates or show a positive trend.
