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We spent some time reviewing Christmas comps and here are some data points and observations.   Sample Group 38 vendors in the sample selling various product departments including paint, tools, cleaning, lawn and garden, storage, electrical, and lumber.  Sales numbers for Home Depot, Sears, Wal-Mart, Lowes, Target, CVS. Results All vendors as a group were... Read more »

The availability of retail point of sale data over the past several years has created the opportunity for vendors to gain a detailed understanding of consumer demand at the retail point of sale.  Actual consumer demand at the retail point of sale presents a more accurate and timely picture of how your SKU’s are selling... Read more »

Home Depot Inc.’s (HD) fiscal third-quarter earnings edged up 1.4% as the home-improvement-products retailer recorded strong revenue growth and slightly wider margins.   Tuesday, Mr. Blake said results for the quarter “were better than we expected and reflected, in part, what we believe is the start of the path toward the healing of the housing... Read more »

RedPrairie and JDA Software announced a definitive merger agreement today.  Many of our vendors use JDA plan o gram software for managing their store modulars so this is an interesting development.  The “merger” sounds more like a RedPrairie acquisition of JDA based on the language in the PR.  Home Depot in particular, but other large... Read more »

As a group our Home Depot vendors are up 9% YTD over the prior year comp for US stores, Canadian stores are up 96%. (the Canadian sample is smaller)   Lowe’s stores are up 2% YTD over the prior year comp for US stores.   Home Depot will be releasing Q3 2012 earnings results on November 13... Read more »

Retail sales rose in October which is encouraging, and optimism for a good holiday sales period appear to be growing.  Some report highlights: Target same store sales rose 2.4% Macy’s same store sales increased 4.1% Kohl’s comps rose 3.3% – more than the expected 1.1% Nordstrom posted a rise of 9.9% in same store sales... Read more »

WASHINGTON — The National Retail Federation released its 2012 holiday forecast on Tuesday, which shows sales increasing 4.1% to $586.1 billion, down from last year’s 5.6% growth. However, the NRF’s 2012 estimate tops the 10-year holiday sales growth average of 3.5%. “This is the most optimistic forecast NRF has released since the recession. In spite... Read more »

The role of analytics in retail has evolved substantially over the past few years and it’s having a significant positive impact.  The days of hearing a vendor say “Oh, we get an EDI 852 but we don’t really do anything with it” are starting to fade into the rear view mirror.  This blog post will... Read more »

Lowe’s posted declines in net sales, comp-store sales and earnings in the second quarter ended August 3. “Our results fell short of our overall expectations,” said Robert Niblock, Lowe’s chairman, president and CEO.  “However, I have confidence in our strategy and in our employees, and while we recognize the significant magnitude of change that we’ve... Read more »