Data & Analytics

It’s been quite common of late to hear retailers cite warm weather and intense competition as sources of sales weakness, but the prize for originality goes to PriceSmart after the warehouse club operator reported a January same-store sales decline.

While rumors of Amazon launching a chain of physical bookstores seem to be exaggerated, there is no question that pure-play retailers are beginning to make inroads into the brick-and-mortar channel. Over the past couple of years, e-tailers as diverse as Warby Parker, Bonobos and Birchbox have not only opened stores, but committed themselves to expanding in the space.

Here are a few good reasons for virtual enterprises to consider selling items in a “real” environment.

Buy Online, Pickup at Your Store

Positive trends with its online business were not enough to help Kohl’s offset in-store weakness and intense competition, which pressured profits and caused a significant downward revision in guidance.

Kohl’s said its fourth quarter same-store sales increased 0.4% while the digital business grew 30%. Full year same store sales increase 0.7%.

A digital consumer touch-point long thought to offer little in the way of “hard” ROI appears to be changing that trend.

According to a study of aggregated, anonymized U.S. traffic and revenue data from Kibo (the new company created from the merger of MarketLive, Shopatron and Fiverun), there was a 138% increase in total social revenue during 2015 compared to 2014.

The CEO of General Growth Properties caused a firestorm late Tuesday when he made a passing reference during the company’s fourth quarter earnings call that Amazon was planning to open 300 to 400 bookstores. On Wednesday, the mall giant issued a very short statement that poured water on the fire.

“General Growth Properties CEO Sandeep Mathrani has indicated that a statement he made concerning Amazon during GGP's earnings conference call held on February 2, 2016, was not intended to represent Amazon's plans.”

Same-store sales at Costco were mostly flat in January across the globe, mirroring reports from other retailers reporting soft sales.

According to Forbes, during the week of Feb. 1, eBay Inc. remediated a flaw in its network security program that allowed hackers to place malware within the “active content” eBay merchants use to deliver pop-up ads and other dynamic messaging to customers. However, this action may not be enough to address wider security issues at eBay. [Forbes]

For all their talk about the customer, most retailers have yet to evolve to a business model that is truly customer-centric.

That’s the conclusion of a new industry study by strategic consulting firm The O Alliance that was created in partnership with Revmetri.