Budgets/Spending/Market Size

Brick-and-mortar retailers such as Walmart and Best Buy are not only surviving online, but are thriving due to their sizable physical assets and digital investments.   That’s one of the main findings of a new report by Moody's Investors Service, which says that while Amazon keeps raising the stakes online and has a decade-plus advantage over other retailers in e-commerce, it still faces intense competition from the likes of Walmart and Best Buy, who are raising the bar online for other physical merchants.   

The waning popularity of golf has taken its toll on the nation’s largest specialty golf retailer.

Golfsmith International Holdings Inc. on Wednesday filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, amid increasing debt and citing a strategy that it launched several years back to open bigger, most costly stores at a time when golf was beginning to decline in popularity. (Just last month, Nike last month announced it was leaving the golf hardware business, its worst-performing division. Adidas is selling its golf equipment business. )

The holiday shopping frenzy has begun, and it is shaping up to be more digital than ever.

Summer has barely said goodbye, but consumers nationwide have already turned their attention to the holidays. In fact, nearly one third of consumers, and nearly half of parents, began holiday shopping before Labor Day.

North American real estate owners and developers ratcheted up their green profiles markedly this year, though they still lag global trendsetters, according to the latest results of an annual sustainability study.   In GRESB’s annual environmental assessment of real estate developers and investment trusts, North American companies averaged a score of 59 out of a possible hundred, a five-point rise from last year and just shy of the global average of 60.  

While some specialty chains struggle to meet earnings predictions, Dollarama reported better-than-expected second quarter results. The Montreal-based discount chain’s net income was $106.4 million for the second quarter of fiscal 2017, ended July 31, 2016 — up 11.4% from $95.5 million for the same period last year.  

Quick-serve restaurant chain Chipotle has been hit with a lawsuit in which current and former Chipotle employees claim that the company made them work extra hours "off the clock" without paying them, CNN Money reported.   

Big Lots Inc. isn’t letting soft sales in the second quarter damper its outlook. Instead, the retailer raised its profit forecast for the year.   The discounter on Friday reported fiscal second-quarter net income of $22.7 million, which surpassed analysts’ expectations, from $17.64 million in the year-ago period.   Revenue totaled $1.2 billion in the period, which missed Street forecasts. Same-store sales inched up 0.3%.  

Retailers can expect a slight rise in holiday sales this year compared to last — fueled largely by the online channel.   That’s according to Kantar Retail, which released the industry’s first 2016 holiday sales forecast. It projects growth of 3.8% for the fourth quarter, a slight increase over the 3.4% growth in the year-ago period.     

Consumers expect to spend the same or less on holiday gifts this year.   That’s according to Berkeley Research Group, whose 2016 Holiday Retail Outlook report also identified five major challenges facing retailers as they head into the holiday season.  

Back to school sales appear to be rebounding this year after experiencing sluggish growth over the past three years (2013-2015).   That’s according to First Data’s Back-to-school SpendTrend report, which is based on aggregate same store sales activity in the First Data point-of-sale network.   Some of the most significant findings include: