Check out the quickly shifting media landscape putting retailers’ ad strategies at risk.

In a research note this week, Credit Suisse analyst Michael Exstein examined what changes in the media world mean for retailers who are used to reaching consumers through traditional channels — like the newspaper.

In the past five years, there has been a modest shift from print toward digital media, but Exstein warned that: ”We may in effect be reach a ‘tipping point’ where past media strategies will no longer be sustainable.”

Promotional national retailers that cater to a younger demographic and rely on national media to communicate to customers may be most exposed to changes in the media landscape, he said.

“This is a particularly acute problem for retailers that are used to (some would say dependent on) driving sales and marketshare through promotions such as Target, Kohl’s, Macy’s, and JCPenney,” he said.

“How will they promote in the future if the Sunday newspaper can not be counted on to distribute an insert or an television network can not be counted on to deliver an audience at a specific time/day?”

Retailers like Target that have a large number of younger shoppers — shoppers who rarely, if ever, read a newspaper and instead spend large amounts of time using Facebook or Twitter – there is less time to respond to the changing way consumers consume media, he said.

But retailers with older demographics – like Bon-Ton, Dillard’s, JCPenney or Macy’s – may have the advantage of at least being able to follow the lead of other retailers, who will need to move swiftly to respond to the shifting media landscape.

Also in the basket:

Estee to end wholesale distribution of Prescriptives

Hemlines heading way up in spring 2010 fashions

Kraft may need 850-900p to swallow Cadbury

Pilgrim’s Pride files Chapter 11 plan

(Photo: Reuters)

Check out the cost cutting formula failing at Sears.

In the past few weeks a slew of retailers, ranging from Target to Macy’s to Dillard’s, have posted results that were better than Wall Street expected, helped by cost cuts.  Retailers have done everything from freezing executive salaries to eliminating jobs to slowing store expansion plans.

But on Thursday, Sears reported a surprise loss in its second quarter while analysts were expecting a profit.

The company, controlled by hedge fund manager Edward Lampert, cut total costs and expenses 8 percent. But revenue fell 10.3 percent to $10.55 billion.

Sales at its Sears stores continued to suffer from the faltering housing market, which has sapped demand for its Craftsman tools and Kenmore appliances.

Same-store sales at Sears fell 12.5 percent, while Kmart’s same-store sales slid 3.9 percent. Overall, same-store sales fell 8.6 percent, and the decline accelerated after slowing during the past two quarters.

“Ouch,” wrote Morgan Stanley analyst Gregory Melich in his note reviewing the results. “This morning’s 2Q miss was pretty much across the board, with weak comps and lack of gross margin expansion standing out.”

Bottom line, he said, Sears remains a weak retail asset.

Or, as Credit Suisse analyst Gary Balter put it in his note entitled “Put a Fork In It” — “We continue to view Sears Holding as the most overvalued stock in our coverage.”

Also in the basket:

Barnes & Noble profit declines less than expected

Clothing makers beat estimates, but outlooks mixed

Kohl’s loooking at spots in Manhattan

Dick’s Sporting Q2 tops market

Club stores accepting coupons (WSJ, subscription required)

Check out the quarterly results at Wal-Mart.

The retail giant posted a flat profit in line with Wall Street’s expectations, but it gained market share in the recession as consumers sought to take advantage of the company’s low prices on necessities.  

Wal-Mart Chief Executive Mike Duke said the company remains cautiously optimistic about the timetable for the economic recovery, while Vice Chairman Eduardo Castro-Wright said a large part of its U.S. growth was coming from new customers.

Others have accepted the new reality of thrifty shoppers as well, as upscale, natural grocer Whole Foods blew past analysts’ profit expectations thanks partly to cost controls and lower-priced fare.  Department store operator Kohl’s, which typically has lower-priced items than other chains and uses discounts to lure shoppers, also just topped Wall Street’s profit expectations.

Hopes the economy will soon emerge from recession were dented this week by a government report that showed sales at U.S. retailers fell for a second straight month in April.

Also in the basket:

Coke to launch bottle partly derived from plants

Urban Outfitters quarterly profit falls

LVMH to take stake in ethical fashion brand Edun

Nice Work if You Can Mix It (Wall Street Journal)

Massachusetts Adopts Rules for Calorie Counts on Menus (Wall Street Journal)

(Reuters photo)

Online retail may be outperforming brick-and-mortar rivals amid the U.S. recession, but that’s no reason to get complacent.

In a wake-up call to the industry, a new survey shows that customer satisfaction with online retailers declined 3 percent from last year.

The slipping satisfaction level uncovered in ForeSee Results’ Top 100 Online Retail Satisfaction Index is a “remarkable trend,” according to its author.

The report — which surveyed 22,000 respondents to measure customer satisfaction at the top 100 online retailers by sales volume — found that the top performers were outweighed by more bottom performers, with 55 online retailers seeing their scores drop from last year.
 
“Customer satisfaction, when measured scientifically, is not just a number or a beauty contest. It is a direct precursor of customer behaviors that have a measurable and quantifiable ability to impact sales and profitability,” warned author Larry Freed.
    
A 1 point increase in customer satisfaction is equivalent to nearly 9 percent growth in online sales, the report found, while a satisfied shopper is 71 percent more likely to buy than a dissatisfied one. 
    
First, the good news: Netflix.com is still No 1, followed by Amazon.com, with the top two companies maintaining their spots for five years in a row.  Avon.com came in third.

While a score of 80 or above represents a superior job, those logging lower than a 70 need some help.

That group includes 1800Flowers.com, BlueNile.com, JCrew.com, UrbanOutfitters.com and RestorationHardware.com.

The biggest year-over-year declines in customer satisfaction came from discounter Etronics.com and book retailer efollett.com, both also among the worst performers.
    
“It is surprising that any of the top 100 retailers could get away with scores in the 60s and maintain any kind of market dominance for very long,” wrote Freed.
    
While not in the bottom group, sites including CVS.com, NeimanMarcus.com, Apple.com and Blockbuster.com all saw their ratings fall over 6 percent from the prior year.

The biggest year-over year improvement came from Kohls.com, which improved nearly 6 percent.

Check out some strong sales.

Sure, sales are still down at most chains.  Still, anything that’s down less than expected is a good sign in this economy, right?

Sales at Wal-Mart’s U.S. stores open at least a year jumped 5 percent, topping analysts’ average expectation for a 2.9 percent rise.  And in a sign that improving sales are leading to better profitability, retailers including J.C. Penney, TJX and Kohl’s raised their profit expectations for their just-completed first quarter.

Also, it looks like kids whose parents didn’t have the money for family vacations over spring break spent some of their time in shopping malls.  Some of the biggest surprises came from Aeropostale and The Buckle, which cater to teens.  Both posted double-digit gains in same-store sales.

Also in the basket:

Sara Lee profit beats estimates, helped by U.S. bakery business

Wendy’s/Arby’s posts first-quarter loss

Elizabeth Arden loss narrows

Walgreen’s beauty merchant leaves chain (WWD, subscription required)

(Reuters photo)

Check Out the drop in sales.

It was no surprise that sales were weak in December, though some retailers stood out Thursday for their worse-than-expected performance.

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, said sales at U.S. stores open at least a year rose just 1.7 percent, while analysts were expecting a 2.8 percent increase.  Wal-Mart and other chains such as Macy’s cut guidance for the fourth quarter ending later this month.
 
Shares of Wal-Mart fell more than 9 percent on Thursday morning, dragging the Dow Jones industrial average into negative territory as well.

Research firm Retail Metrics said that while the month was not as bad as it could have been, it was still ugly.

Among the retailers that bucked the trend:
Target’s same-store sales fell 4.1 percent, but that drop was less than expected.
 
Discount chains TJX and Ross Stores said same-store sales were in line with last year, while analysts had expected both of their sales to fall. Kohl’s, meanwhile, said same-store sales fell only 1.4 percent, while analysts expected a 5.5 percent dip. 
 
Some teenagers apparently still have some money to spend — or they got others to buy them gifts last month.  Aeropostale’s same-store sales jumped 12 percent (analysts predicted a decline) and Hot Topic’s same-store sales rose a better-than-expected 4.3 percent.  Guess people are still heading to the stores for ”Twilight” perfume, shirts and other items.

Also in the basket:

Sears Holdings same-store sales fall, cash rises

Walgreen cuts about 1,000 jobs

European shoppers seek value as economy darkens

U.S. Fashion’s One-Woman Bailout? (New York Times)

(Reuters photo)

Black Friday has come and gone but what on earth happened at the cash registers over the Thanksgiving weekend? The data is trickling in, and so are the early critiques. (See our previous blogs: Treat Black Friday reports cautiously and Black Friday data spurs more questions than answers)

Here is a break down of the latest reports and what data is still to come:

National Retail Federation:

According its 2008 Black Friday Weekend survey, conducted by BIGresearch and published on Sunday, the NRF said more than 172 million shoppers visited stores and websites over Black Friday weekend (which includes Thursday, Friday, Saturday and projections for Sunday), up from 147 million shoppers last year. 

Shoppers spent an average of $372.57 this weekend, up 7.2 percent over last year’s $347.55. Total spending reached an estimated $41.0 billion, up from $34.6 billion a year ago.

The results came from a survey that polled 3,370 consumers from Nov. 27-29. The consumer poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.7 percent.

ShopperTrak: 

ShopperTrak RCT’s National Retail Sales Estimate found sales on Black Friday and Saturday rose 1.9 percent from 2007 – with each day posting total sales of $10.6 billion and $6.0 billion, respectively.

It said Saturday sales fell 0.8 percent compared with last year as most Black Friday promotions ended.  Sales on Saturday last year rose 5.4 percent over 2006, with $6.1 billion spent that day.   

“At this point, we anticipate sales levels will continue to slow this week as consumers will remain home, looking for additional holiday sales toward the end of the shortened 2008 season,” said Bill Martin, co-founder of ShopperTrak, in a statement on Monday.

ShopperTrak’s results are derived from statistics from the Commerce Department on sales of items like apparel, furniture, and electronics, combined with data it tracks on shopper traffic in stores.

SpendingPulse:

On Monday, SpendingPulse, a data service provided by MasterCard Advisors, said sales at U.S. specialty apparel retailers rose 1.6 percent on Friday and Saturday from a year earlier, but sales at electronics specialty retailers fell 14.3 percent. Luxury retailers saw a 2.4 percent increase,  while e-commerce sales rose 11.8 percent, it said. 

“We definitely think there was some pent-up demand that came to the front lines on Black Friday,” said SpendingPulse’s Michael McNamara. “Major discounting obviously attracted that.” 

SpendingPulse is a macroeconomic indicator that estimates U.S. retail sales across all payment forms, including cash and checks.

Data to come:

Dec. 3: SpendingPulse will release its full report on November monthly sales.

Dec. 3: ShopperTrak will release its complete report for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, in addition to sales and traffic data for the week ending Nov. 29.

Dec. 4: Major retail chains, like Wal-Mart, Gap and Kohl’s, will release their November monthly sales figures and are expected to comment on the Black Friday weekend.

(Photo\Reuters)

Wal-Mart flexed its retail muscle on Black Friday to the delight of deal-seeking shoppers who spoke with our reporter Nicole Maestri in Columbia, Maryland.

Early bird buyers with shopping carts stuffed with toys, electronics and clothes stood 10 deep in checkout lines and the parking lot was packed with cars at 7:30 in the morning. In Valley Stream, Long Island, the crush turned tragic when a temp worker was killed by the crowd surging through a Wal-Mart’s doors.

The Friday after Thanksgiving, known as Black Friday, kicks off the Christmas shopping season and marks what is traditionally the busiest retail day of the year. But what began to emerge from shoppers’ stories was that even if they were willing to look for deals elsewhere, they kept coming back to Wal-Mart.

Marathon shoppers April Richards, 26, and her mom, Diana Eichhorn, 49, started their holiday gift hunt at the Thanksgiving Day sale at Kmart, which was out of the pajamas they hoped to buy. From there they went to Arundel Mills, that features outlet and discount stores, at midnight. They also stopped by Kohl’s at 4 a.m.

But at Wal-Mart they found deals on everything from a sewing machine to $8 jeans and $4 pajamas. The duo said the store’s discounts were so good that they bought jeans and other items that they normally would have purchased elsewhere.

Wal-mart is expected to be one of the few companies to prosper this holiday shopping season, which is feared to be the weakest since the early 1990s as a credit freeze and home price implosion hit consumers’ wallets.

In Oakland, California, shoppers who lined up in the darkness to be first to get their hands on deals when the store opened at 5 a.m. sprinted for the electronics and computer departments.

Back in Maryland, Adel Beshai, 42, said he arrived at a Wal-Mart at 6:30 in the morning knowing that he could get a low price on a flat-screen television. He walked out with a 50-inch Samsung for a little less than $900.

Beshai, who lost his carpentry job about a year ago and now drives a taxi, said he is not trimming his holiday budget. He still plans to take his four children to the stores to pick out what they want for gifts.

“It’s our life,” Beshai said. “We cannot die because the economy is down.”

The scene was more subdued across the street at Target, where the registers were not as busy ringing up sales and few lines had more than two people waiting.

Still, the store’s electronics department was busy.

In the Target parking lot, Alice Hughes, 45, said her purchases included an $89 digital camera.

Hughes said she was expecting to see more people at Target. “They need more people to be out so they will probably lower prices,” she said.

Hughes, a senior contracts administrator for the government, said she and her 25-year-old daughter had already been to Sears, Macy’s and JCPenney.

A treadmill deal at Sears lured Hughes out on Black Friday, when she usually stays home.

In addition to buying the treadmill at Sears, Hughes bought a 32-inch flat screen TV.
At JCPenney, she bought a $60 coat for herself and a $30 leather coat for her daughter.

Still, Hughes said she was not overly impressed with the prices.

“I think they’re playing. They tell you they’re marking down but they’re really not,” said Hughes, who expects prices to fall further as Christmas approaches.

Jamal Bullock, 30, has already learned that lesson.

In the Target parking lot after buying a stand for his new television, Bullock said he was headed to Best Buy later in the afternoon to get a refund after the flat-screen TV he bought last week for $1,499. Its price has already fallen to $1,299.

(Photos\Reuters)

Check out a stream of extremely sobering news from – and for – retailers.

This week, quarterly reports came in from Macy’s, Kohl’s, Nordstrom, JC Penney, Charlotte Russe, and Abercrombie & Fitch.

What did they all have in common? All reported profit drops and in the case of Macy’s and Charlotte Russe, quarterly losses.

Those dreary results followed a bankruptcy filing by Circuit City at the start of the week and then a large profit warning from competitor Best Buy.

Wal-Mart, the retailing behemoth, was able to post a nearly 10 percent rise in its quarterly earnings. But investors were somewhat taken aback when it provided a fourth-quarter earnings forecast that could possibly fall below Wall Street expectations, as it gets hit by a stronger U.S. dollar — which lowers the value of its international sales.

To cap it all off, government data showed on Friday that sales at U.S. retailers suffered a record decline in October. Sales slumped 2.8 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted $363.7 billion, the largest decline since the series began in 1992, the Commerce Department said. This compared with a revised 1.3 percent fall in September, previously reported as a 1.2 percent decrease.

It all comes just two weeks before retailers try to get consumers into their stores — and then actually spending money — during the Thanksgiving holiday shopping week. Get ready for a discount bonanza!

Also in the basket:

Wal-Mart CFO: strong dollar could lower cost of goods

Walmart.com CEO says sales grow despite downturn

Americans teetering on $14 trillion debt pile

(Photo: Reuters)

Check out disappointing September retail sales

Many U.S. retailers posted worse-than-expected sales at stores open at least a year on Wednesday, and some cut their profit outlooks and said things won’t improve anytime soon as consumers remain shaken by the financial crisis, job worries and the housing slump.

Discounter Wal-Mart Stores and warehouse clubs managed the best sales performances in September as shoppers sought bargains on necessities. Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest retailer, stood by its third quarter earnings forecast.

Apparel retailers and department stores were particularly hard hit, and even luxury chain Neiman Marcus said consumer demand will stay weak for an extended period. Kohl’s, J.C. Penney and Nordstrom cut quarterly profit forecasts.

The results could further subdue expectations for the 2008 holiday season, expected to be one of the weakest in recent years.

Also in the basket:

Costco quarterly profit rises

August pending home sales jump

Car makers seen betting on electric vehicles

(Photo: Reuters)