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The holiday sales season is coming to a close and shoppers are doing the same with their wallets as well. Some retailers had their share of challenges. Others had success stories. It went right for some and for others, it just went wrong. |
"To sum up the whole season, I would say extremely focused on bargains, that's where the consumer's mindset is, and the retailers generally, overall, delivered pretty compelling bargains, they gave the consumer a reason to shop," said B. Riley & Co senior analyst Jeff Van Sinderen from a recent Yahoo news report. It went right for the retail market as a whole, rising 3.8% higher than sales of 2010. Macy's came into the holiday season opening at midnight on Black Friday and didn't look back, surpassing rival JC Penney and others. They allowed managers to make decisions regarding what item discounts would fit their specific clientele the most.
Wal-Mart made the right strategic move to bring back their popular layaway in October, which helped them edge over in layaway sales against competitors Kmart and Target. Online sales had their greatest year ever, with an increase of 16%, hit almost $3 billion the week before Christmas. This was mostly due to purchasing convenience via smartphone and ipad shopping. The numbers show consumers are becoming more comfortable shopping online.
This holiday season went wrong for Sears and Kmart, resulting in the decision to close over 100 stores due to fourth quarter sales plummets of 5.2%. Fedex and UPS received the wrong type of publicity with drivers being caught on tape flinging holiday packages. It went wrong with Best Buy this year, having to apologize and cancel customer orders close to Christmas Day because they could would not make the deliveries on time. Same-Day Courierslike A-1 Express service nationwide and can help with deliveries in cases like Best Buy. Experts do agree, in spite of it all, this year was a successful holiday sales season overall.