Stay in Touch
The likes of Chewy, Petco and Bark benefited from two major shifts during the pandemic: Accelerated consumer uptake of e-commerce and a pet adoption boom. Now, all three companies are betting on subscriptions to help maintain revenue growth.
While most subcategories across apparel grew, menswear, footwear and out-of-category pushes towards home and beauty were highlights in earnings conferences this quarter. To speak to these consumers, retailers curated menswear towards a younger consumer, expanded active and casual footwear offerings and built online and offline hubs to segment their forays into both beauty and home.
While other apparel retailers are gradually recovering, Zara's parent company is quickly surpassing its pre-Covid sales figures. This week Inditex, which owns the fast fashion brand as well as Pull&Bear and Massimo Dutti, reported a 7% increase in sales compared to the same period in 2019.
U.S. same store sales – up only 3% at Home Depot after a 25% rise last year and down 2% at Lowes for the first time in eight years – highlight the end of the pandemic DIY home boom. In response, executives at both retailers promise to court professionals.
After years of pushing its online segment, most recently with the introduction of the Amazon Prime-esque Walmart+, Walmart is seeing major e-commerce gains. In its quarterly earnings report, the retailer said it's projected to hit $75 billion in e-commerce sales in 2021.
After a series of hits from new data security laws and anti-trust regulations in both China and abroad, Alibaba highlighted some of the difficulties of becoming a global marketplace for both B-to-B and B-to-C logistics and commerce. In response, the retailer continues to split its ecommerce Taobao into separate parts – offering different apps and platforms for deals, consumer to consumer sales and grocery – and growing its cross-border logistics capacities beyond China.
Amazon’s second quarter earnings report reveals the extent to which the company has been able to diversify its revenues, especially in advertising and retail services -- and it has used those new markets to clock in a healthy profit.
On Tuesday, Chipotle announced that revenues increased 38% year over year in the second quarter of 2021 to $1.9 billion. To court employees this quarter, Chipotle raised its minimum wage, recruited via social media, invested in a mental health app for current employees and subsequently hired 5,000 new employees over the second quarter, up to 102,000 total workers at 2,850 restaurants.
After a year of heightened e-commerce sales, PepsiCo's focus has shifted back to in-person sales. On Tuesday, PepsiCo announced second quarter net revenues were up 21% year-over-year to $19.2 billion. A return to in-person consumption and buying at bars and restaurants and big box and convenience stores, drove sales.
Walgreens' 17 million vaccinations drive a 12% revenue increase and a 9% boosts to filled prescriptions this quarter. Going forward, however, the brand will rethink its retail plan -- retail sales were relatively flat year-over-year -- and further invest in digitization and a VillageMD partnership to drive continued success.
As Nordstrom and Macy's are still struggling to return to 2019 sales levels, they are investing more in their off-price businesses to acquire new customers. Nordstrom is focused on driving more Nordstrom Rack sales with the help of its e-commerce business. Macy's meanwhile is opening more off-mall locations and store-in-store locations.
As first quarter earnings calls come to a close, department stores and apparel retailers report that dresses, handbags and activewear drove first quarter sales boosts, while footwear was a mixed bag. To get a better sense of what subcategories are driving success, and which categories are falling behind, Modern Retail rounded up recent earnings call comments from apparel retailers.
As Best Buy is mapping out its post-pandemic future, its store employees are becoming responsible for more than just selling product. Like many other retailers, Best Buy saw huge growth in fulfillment services like curbside pickup during the pandemic, so it's testing out how it can reformat its stores in order to fulfill more online orders as well as utilize its employees to better handle all the new daily requirements.
Nordstrom's sales are starting to inch closer to pre-pandemic levels, but the department store chain is still trying to figure out the right product mix going forward. During its first quarter earnings on Tuesday, Nordstrom reported year-over-year sales growth that was slower than the growth reported by Macy's and Kohl's during their respective first quarter earnings last week.
Kohl’s joins Macy’s and Dillard’s in revealing revenue increases and performance exceeding predicted expectations in the first quarter of 2021. Kohl’s attributes some of this success to optimized merchandizing strategies, returning consumer interest in the apparel category and increased foot traffic. However, the retailer is cautious in its predictions of future performance.
Watch this on-demand webinar where experts discuss the changes to the back-to-school season and what it means for retailers now and in the future.
In 2020, Amazon Logistics delivered 4.2 billion parcel shipments, up from 1.9 billion in 2019. It now makes up, by volume, 21% of the parcel shipments in the U.S., behind the USPS (38%) and UPS (24%) but ahead of FedEx for the first time (16%).
Read MoreAt the Modern Retail Summit, retail executives will come together to discuss effective strategies for driving sales by building a loyal customer base both online and offline.
Book Passes
