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David Ritter, executive director of consumer and retail group Alvarez & Marsal, spent several hours on Saturday and early Sunday mornings watching the activity in stores of all kinds in the Austin, Texas area.
His observations listed below largely mirror those made over the weekend by fellow trade advisors, researchers, and retailers themselves.
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He said the weather “clearly had an impact on shopping in Texas on Saturday. With cloudy and cold rain, traffic was generally lower than expected for the holiday weekend. Big box retailers like Walmart and Target seemed to get more traffic than small box and specialty retailers. Across all retail formats, there seemed to be a lot of excitement and activity with roadside pickup / online purchase and in-store pickup – customers were clearly looking for multichannel functionality. Sunday morning was a different story with traffic across the board. It seemed to have been heavily influenced by the weather, but Sunday had a different mood and excitement across the board – customers in general seemed excited to shop in various retail formats. ”
Ritter said the promotional activities “felt light compared to pre-pandemic levels. The levels were very likely influenced by the expected supply chain and inventory levels and the ability to hold high discounts in stock. In a lot of traditional areas like consumer electronics – a $ 198 43-inch smart TV – Walmart and Target still had a few flashy listings, but smaller specialty formats, especially apparel, felt a lot less ad-heavy than in the past few years. ”
After speaking to buyers, he felt “a general sense of thrift. In general, the intent of their trip was to get the essential gifts they needed for others while they did a little treasure hunt along the way. “
He expects Cyber Monday to be big this year. “Two important factors contribute to this – first, the general frugality of buyers makes me believe that bargain hunting will be an important motivating factor for families who want to earn more on a tighter budget, and second, there have been low rumors of news about the Omicron- Variant and people are starting to speculate on more bans and a generally more cautious attitude when shopping in-store.
The story goes on
Ritter concluded his retail outing believing that inventory looked significantly better than expected. “When I speak to customers, I would say that expectations were very low and it felt like business was in better shape than predicted. There were certain categories that appeared to be in worse shape than others – electronics, pets, and apparel all had significant shortages in select stores. An interesting note: In many of the shops I visited, the employees stated that all products had been pushed on the floor in the sense of “get it while we have it”, which could indicate impending problems later in the Christmas season. “
He felt that people were “pragmatic” shopping for comfortable home work clothes, the best electronics deals, and health-related categories like digital sporting goods accessories and wellness products.
“Large national retailers seemed like the only format with adequate staffing levels,” noted Ritter. “In the specialist retail trade, the staffing level seemed unbelievably low, the staff was overwhelmed and applicants were wanted everywhere. While the stores I visited kept everything together and largely met customer experience expectations, the staff was clearly under pressure which could exacerbate ‘The Great Resignation’ later on into the holiday season. “
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https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/holiday-2021-expert-view-002813983.html
