No Turn On Red

August 2010 Retail Comp / Same Store Sales Numbers

tom — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:52:07 +0000

Retail comp sales results are out for August and they are generally good. Several retailers beat analyst estimates with positive months from Zumiez, Limited Brands, and Abercrombie & Fitch. Hot Topic beat estimates by only decreasing 3.7% for the month, never a good sign. Hot Topic still hasn’t had a positive comp month this year.

This is a run down of the same store sales / comp sales for the retailers we track, for the 4 week period ending August 28, 2010

Retailer:	Comp (%)
Abercrombie & Fitch (entire company)	6.0
Abercrombie & Fitch (brand)	9.0
abercrombie kids	-9.0
Aeropostale	-1.0
American Eagle	1.0
Banana Republic	6.0
Gap Inc. (entire company)	0.0
Gap North America	-1.0
Gap International	-5.0
Hollister	7.0
Hot Topic (company)	-3.7
Hot Topic	-3.3
Kohl’s	4.5
JCPenney	2.3
Limited Brands	10.0
Macy’s	4.3
Old Navy	-2.0
Target	1.8
Torrid	-5.6
Zumiez	9.1

As New Jersey Braces for Hurricane Earl, Businesses Get Ready

tom — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 04:57:08 +0000

Earlier, I talked about how retailers preparing for the arrival of Hurricane Earl across the East Coast, but I’d like to dive into some more specifics for preparation and observations from New Jersey. As of the 11PM advisory from the National Hurricane Center, most of New Jersey is under a tropical storm warning with storm conditions expected to start in the state early Friday morning.

I’ve spoken to several retailers and local businesses and there is a sense of urgency about this storm. They are closely monitoring the storm since a change in direction to the east could spare the state from seeing more than some rain showers, while a break to the west could have lasting impact on the Shore economy. No one wants to a Holiday weekend washout, or worse, after an already shaky economic Summer. Several are looking to this weekend as a make or break weekend for the year.

One national retail executive tells me that they are optimistic that none of their stores will be forced to close during the storm. They are counting on their Northeast stores sales to add to their Summer results. A couple of days of miss sales across the Northeast could translate to a weaker August comp nationally.

I did some shopping at Target tonight and I saw a nearly empty section where flashlights once lived. Between the upcoming storm and the power outage that effected over 70,000 this week, people are buying more flashlights than Target could stock. I have noticed people buying more water, pantry essentials, and beer. Plenty of beer being sold in local liquor stores, I think that there Holiday sales plans are fine, with or without the storm.

While vacationers in North Carolina are evacuating the Outer Banks, hotels in New Jersey are still operational and booked solid for the holiday. I spoke to Barb Youchah of the Middletown Comfort Inn who tells me that storm preparations have been underway at the hotel since yesterday. Barb says, “As of today, we haven’t seen a lot of cancellations but as the word on the storm gets out, that may change. We answered a large number of calls and made reservations for local residents that live very close to the shore or in flood prone areas.” The hotel is far enough inland that flooding and storm-related damage should not be a concern but it is located close enough to areas at risk of flooding that it can provide a refuge for residents looking for drier ground.

She adds, “The forecast is for sunshine on Saturday and Sunday so we are hopeful that will salvage the weekend.”

Barb also tells me that they have plans in place for any employee who is unable to travel due to the storm and that they will be monitoring the storm closely so that they can answer any questions that their guests may have. She has also provided great, local information through the Middletown Comfort Inn Blog and their Twitter account. Another good example of a business using social media to inform and connect with their customers.

Several airlines, including Continental Airlines, have announced that passengers can reschedule flights to airports in Earl’s path without penalty. Continental has a major hub in Newark Liberty Airport so Earl-related delays could ripple throughout the country.

I will be monitoring the storm closely from Belford, NJ and will share any observations I have about the impact from Hurricane Earl to local business. If you have any stories to share during the storm, please contact me and I’ll try to get them onto the blog.

Retailers Prepare as Hurricane Earl Takes Aim at the East Coast

tom — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 03:35:39 +0000

Hurricane Earl is churning in the Atlantic and retailers are getting ready as well as offering advice to customers on how to prepare for the storm. The storm is threatening the entire Mid-Atlantic and Northeast portions of the United States as well as Nova Scotia. Residents in these areas should be going to their local stores and stocking up on the recommended supplies.

As expected, residents in North Carolina are getting ready for the storm and retailers are seeing a surge in customers. From the article:

“We have just definitely seen an increase in customer traffic it started yesterday a little bit but over today they’ve been moving with the batteries and tarps and flashlights and things like that,” said store manager Robert Evans.

The storm is only about 24 hours from impacting the Outer Banks and I hope that anyone who hasn’t evacuated is just about finished hunkering down for the next few days.

Almost two years ago, I noted how well Home Depot was using Twitter to communicate advice and store opening/closing information during Hurricane Gustav. This season has not been any different as they are offering great tips for residents who are preparing for the storm through their Twitter feed and their blog. The retailer has an entire section of their site dedicated to hurricane preparation with helpful videos and articles. Of course this drives traffic back to the retailer, but it also provides good information and knowledge to shoppers.

Having a disaster plan is important for any small business and Office Depot has offered advice to small businesses who are in the path of the storm.

Shortly, I’m going to follow this post up with a second post sharing some more, localized information about how businesses are preparing for the storm. I’m not very far from the Atlantic Ocean, along the coast of New Jersey, and I have a few notes that I’d like to share.

The next 24 hours are going to be a crucial time to watch this storm. Depending on the exact path that it takes, this could become a very bad Labor Day weekend along the East Coast.

The rise and fall of American Apparel

tom — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 04:05:48 +0000

I remember when American Apparel became the go to provider for t-shirts for anyone who was doing screen printing for bands. Their t-shirts ran true to size, better than Hanes, and were affordable in bulk. As punk bands with budgets became a more style conscious, American Apparel was a great choice.

A few years later, American Apparel translated the wholesale success into one of the strongest fashion/retail bands of the later part of this decade. But now, they face a litany of problems that threaten to doom the retailer. The Gaurdian’s has an excellent piece, The rise and fall of American Apparel, detailing all of the problems facing the retailer today, from debt to lawsuits to immigration problems. This is a story that I think will serve as the outline for the business class that will be taught about American Apparel one day.

The fashion empire of this maverick Canadian entrepreneur – who apparently relishes his reputation as a pervert and a libertine – has gone from being the coolest company on the block when it arrived in Britain in 2004 to the brink of bankruptcy because its auditor, Deloitte & Touche, resigned last month after discovering “material weaknesses” in the financial controls of the clothing company dating back to last year.

For the exhibitionist Charney, whose excesses are the stuff of fashion-industry legend, to be finally humbled by accounts that are more street corner than Wall Street is, some might think, a bit like Al Capone finally being brought to book over tax evasion. But whatever the catalyst, it has led to the unravelling of an empire. It is a rags to riches – and back to rags again – story that has the fashion world in its thrall.

Americal Apparel has become a well known brand in both retail and fashion, but it is looking like their downfall is going to be their own success. After unveiling their first two stores in 2003, they launched one of the most aggressive retail expansion plans of the previous decade. Doing so has coupled the retailer with debt at a time when the industry is struggling. Add in seemingly unstable leadership and it is difficult to say what the future holds for the retailer.

I do wonder what the future holds for retail operations but I do hope that the wholesale operations can find a way to continue, in spite of whatever happens to the company. They really do make a great product.

Express Lane for 8/26/2010

tom — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 03:15:50 +0000

Some stories I’ve been reading over the past few days:

SmashingMagazine shares some e-commerce design advice with their article, Improve Your E-Commerce Design With Brilliant Product Photos. Not only do they share examples of good product photography in e-commerce, but they also share tips and advice for e-commerce site owners who are looking for better photography.

Last year, Nordstrom rolled out a new inventory management system that allowed the retailer to combine web and in-store inventory. This new inventory system is one of the driving factors behind the retailer’s sales growth in 2010. It is also making for more satisfied customers. It’s a win for both parties.

The Retail Doctor, Bob Phibbs, has a great analysis of one retailer who used daily deal site Groupon and saw less than stellar results. Through all of the hype of Groupon and the sites that are starting to follow, this is a good cautionary tale about the downfalls of large price discounts in retail. The blog post is also followed by some great comments that offer some additional views on the matter.

Announcing: Refresh, Redesign, and Relaunch of No Turn On Red

tom — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 19:56:37 +0000

Just a quick note to let everyone know that I’ve completed a pretty major overhaul of the site last week. Launched late Thursday, this is the first major refresh of this blog in nearly three years and I am very, very excited to share it with everyone. In addition to a new design of the site, I have completely revamped the underlying WordPress theme in an effort to make the blog more readable, archives more browsable, and content more shareable.

One of the challenges that I faced was how to deal with the archive of over 300 blog posts written since 2006. I spent a considerable amount of time reorganizing the category structure, reviewing tags, and creating a better archive page all in an effort to make the past content more accessible. All posts now have intergrated Twitter, Facebook, and Digg buttons to make sharing the content here easy.

If you do enjoy the content here, I hope you will consider subscribing to the RSS feed, following me on Twitter (@noturnonred), or Liking us on the new Facebook page (where our content is also syndicated).

As we enter the wind down of the Back to School season and prepare for the ramp up into the madness that is Q4 retail, I have exciting content and thoughts to share that I hope will get all of us through the busy season. Expect to also see some fresh content shared from ecommr and a new release of my Retail Twitter Aggregator, which shows a real time, one page view of what retailers are Tweeting.

Thanks for reading No Turn On Red!

Express Lane for 8/24/2010

tom — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 06:21:49 +0000

Sharing with you the stories that I’m reading today. Some notes on Gap International, Google makes a retail-related acquisition, and links to good resources for e-commerce developers.

The always terrific Get Elastic blog has an excellent roundup of 22 features of e-commerce site search. The terrific review of a variety of search options and search results from different e-commerce stories is really helpful. Site search is a very important, and sometimes overlooked, area of e-commerce implementations. The Get Elastic blog post should inspire some conversations about ways to improve your search.

Seeking Alpha has some notes on Gap’s Q2 results and their international strategy. Australia, China, and Italy will all see new Gap and/or Banana Republic stores this year. I don’t blame Gap for expanding internationally as that division has been on fire this year. According to my tracking, the international division has seen only one month of negative comps this year; everything else has been flat or positive.

Google makes a big splash by buying visual search engine like.com. Great deal for Google, probably an even better deal for like.com. I’d love to see what Google Product Search will look like after the like.com engine is integrated.

Finally, Practical E-commerce has another good article discussing the pros and cons of different checkout methods. More food for thought for developers and designers.

Express Lane for 8/20/2010

tom — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 21:11:04 +0000

Some retail, e-commerce, and e-mail marketing links that I’ve like to share with you today:

First up, clothing retailer Gap and deal of the day website Groupon teamed up yesterday to offer customers $50 of Gap merchandise for $25. This is the first time the deal of the day website partnered with a national retailer and reports are that over 400,000 coupons were sold in one day. Excellent day, I’m sure, for Groupon.

Bronto Blog has a roundtable discussion on 5 Ways to Get Your Newsletter Deleted. As usual, great advice and tips for anyone concerned with e-mail marketing strategy.

With the bankruptcy of several national retailers, retail vacancies are on the rise. Here in New Jersey, retail vacancies are at the highest point in the last ten years. This shouldn’t be too surprising since the area has been hit especially hard with the loss of chains like Linens ‘N Things, CompUSA, and Circuit City as well as store closings by Office Depot and Boscov’s.

And finally, Zippycart has a good advice for retailers, looking to drive traffic to their store, in their post 13 Ecommerce Link Building Tactics fr Your Online Store.

12 Footwear Product Detail Pages & What Makes Them Shopable

tom — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 05:50:59 +0000

As a consumer, I think footwear is one of the harder categories to shop for online. Shoes tend to have more unique fit, fabric, and features than apparel. Two shoes may be the same size but fit entirely differently and it makes the buying process harder.

(Or maybe those are just my experiences and that explains why I stick to Converse and New Balances for most occasions.)

Thinking about buying sneakers online got me thinking about the buying experience, online. I wanted to do a study of footwear e-commerce retailers and see how they present their products. I want to see what features are being used, what information is being presented, and how this all lays out to create a good (or bad) shopping experience.

The retailers that I think are doing it well all share three key elements: combining manufacturer provided details and user provided feedback/reviews, large photography, and clean design. Educate the consumer, paint them a picture, and lead them to the cart as quickly as possible.

(Click on each screenshot for a larger view.)

Aldo

Basic UX flow of product photography, product information, and then the color/size picker. I think it is a loss to have the size guide hidden behind a tab, but the information is still readily available to the consumer so it isn’t a huge negative. Callouts for return, delivery, and payment information on the page create confidence with the consumer.
Converse

Good looking site, but it’s all Flash. I really do not like Flash e-commerce sites. Visually this works well, but functionally is falls a bit flat and slow at times. Not a lot of product information, but then again, the average person buying Converse probably already knows what they feel and fit like. (I’ve been wearing them for 15 years, myself.)
DSW

It shouldn’t be a surprise that DSW, a leading shoe retailer, has a great layout for their footwear product detail page. Large photograph, thorough alternate shots, tons of product information, integrated user reviews, and a clean and organized color/size picker. The product reviews are a great way to give the customer more information that they need to make an informed purchase.

Famous Footwear

Good use of photography and alternate shots. Shoes are a three dimension object and eight photos cover all of the detail.
Kenneth Cole

Surprisingly one of the few retailers in this exercise that is using color swatches effectively. User clicks on a swatch and they see the product photo and alternate shots for that color or pattern.
Kohl’s

Same layout as all of the other products on the site. It’s a good, basic layout that works for a range of products (from shoes to clothes to kitchen electrics). The shoe fit information is hidden on the page and easy to miss on first glance.
Overstock

Creeping into information overload, but not there yet. By having a navigation at the top of the page, there is more horizontal space here for product information, recommendations and cross sells. Links to a multitude of buying guides is helpful (I love knowledge in e-commerce stores). Good integration of reviews and ratings.
Payless

Most of the stores in this post include a left hand navigation, usually for subcategories, while the user is on the product detail page. For this exercise, I am ignoring the left hand navigation and only focusing on the product content. However, for Payless, I have to note that they get rid of the left hand navigation entirely when the user is on a product detail page. This opens up more space for product information and they use it very effectively. The product photo on this page is one of the largest and most detailed that I have seen.

I assume that a company like Payless, with lower ticket and lower margin items, is very concerned with moving as many units as they can. I think they are doing a good job to nail conversions by presenting information in a clean layout with visually exciting callouts and a lot of product photography. It’s simple but it works very well.
Piperlime

Not a lot of product or fit information, size guide link hangs in the middle of no where. But great photography, clean color/size picker, and reviews on the product detail page are a plus.
Sports Authority

Pluses are the huge call to actions (user is not searching for the Add to Cart button here), ratings and availability information. Product information and buying guides get pushed down the page and the user has to hunt for this.
Shoes.com

Great callout, good color/size picker, great photography, great product information, and non-intrusive product recommendations. This page is a win from a customer standpoint.
Zappos

Zappos gives the user all of the information that they need to make an informed purchase. From product information, to fit information

Abercrombie on e-commerce predicting in-store results

tom — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 17:43:17 +0000

Abercrombie and Fitch held their Q2 2010 results conference call today. Although they announced an increase in sales and comps, they also touched on closing 110 stores over the next year, higher inventory levels and lower gross margins. Not a good quarter for the teen retailer.

However, I did like this quick bite from the question and answer portion of the call.

Christine Chen – Needham & Company

I’m wondering, your e-Com business is doing so well. Have you been able to use that to test product, and is that something that you can react quickly enough of certain things that you have on the internet only, like the Epic product you’re selling, and maybe getting it into different locations?

Mike Jeffries

The direct-to-consumer business, we have been experimenting with that; we have been testing categories of direct-to-consumer. And the direct-to-consumer results are proving to be pretty predictive of what happens in store. We’re fascinated with the potential of direct-to-consumer; are in fact, expanding our assortments. We have a major goal for that business and what you’re describing is very definitely a part of where we’re taking it.

Leveraging the e-commerce division to test new ideas, categories, and merchandise assortments is a fantastic way to drive in-store sales with less risk and overhead. A mass market retailer can roll out pilot programs to brick and mortar locations around the country, but not in the time (or without the cost) that they can do it online. With a targeted buying, marketing, and social media strategy, a retailer can measure the success of new categories faster than ever. Measure sales and social media feedback and learn what your customers like, or don’t like, about new categories.

I imagine that Abercrombie, with a rough few quarters behind them, is going to lean heavily on the e-comm business to drive growth and look for more predictions on in-store over the next 18 months.

No Turn On Red

August 2010 Retail Comp / Same Store Sales Numbers

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As New Jersey Braces for Hurricane Earl, Businesses Get Ready

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Retailers Prepare as Hurricane Earl Takes Aim at the East Coast

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The rise and fall of American Apparel

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Abercrombie on e-commerce predicting in-store results

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