RetailNext Forecasts Strong 4 to 4.5 Percent Holiday Growth for U.S. Retail Sector

Mobile Commerce to Continue Driving Sales Increases as Retailers Close Out a Better-Than-Expected Year

SAN JOSE, CA, UNITED STATES, September 13, 2018 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Today, RetailNext Inc., the worldwide expert and market leader in IoT smart store retail analytics for optimizing shopper experiences, announced a strongly positive forecast for U.S. retail performance over the upcoming November through December holiday period, projecting a 4-4.5 percent year-over-year jump in sales, driven largely by a 15 percent increase in YoY sales through online channels.

Based on broad macro-economic data and current retail trends, RetailNext’s forecast for U.S. retail stores during Holiday 2018 (November – December) includes:
• A 4-4.5 percent increase in overall sales YoY for the U.S. retail sector (excluding automobiles and petroleum), but with relatively tight margins consistent with recent holiday seasons
- Digital sales will grow at a slower rate, but will still increase 15 percent YoY
- Brick-and-mortar store performance will rebound from recent years, but will likely fall short of posting positive YoY gains
- Top seasonal performers will include beauty, toys, off-price, warehouse clubs, home improvement and home furnishings segments
• The holiday season will push total annual retail sales well above $5 trillion in 2017, with e-commerce sales breaking through the $500 billion mark
• Black Friday will provide physical stores their highest shopper traffic day, but “Super Saturday” December 22 will be the biggest day in terms of in-store sales

“The last several years have seen U.S. consumers begin their shopping earlier and earlier, sometimes before Halloween,” said Lauren Bitar, head of retail consulting at RetailNext. “Promotions will start early and that will impact the continued erosion of Black Friday, for while Black Friday will continue its reign as brick-and-mortar stores’ most heavily trafficked day, it will not be stores’ biggest day in terms of sales.”

“Shoppers will continue their trend of waiting for deals, not only on merchandise, but shipping as well,” continued Bitar, “and with four shopping weekends in December waiting to serve procrastinators, I fully expect retail’s biggest days at the register to be at the end of the holiday season.”

Forecasted top store shopper traffic days
• Friday, November 23 (Black Friday)
• Saturday, December 22 (Super Saturday)
• Sunday, December 23
• Saturday, December 15
• Friday, December 21
• Saturday, December 8
• Sunday, November 25
• Wednesday, December 26
• Thursday, December 20
• Saturday, December 1

Forecasted top store sales days
• Saturday, December 22 (Super Saturday)
• Friday, November 23 (Black Friday)
• Sunday, December 23
• Saturday, December 15
• Saturday, December 8
• Sunday, December 16
• Friday, December 21
• Saturday, December 1
• Thursday, December 20
• Wednesday, December 19

“I expect a nostalgic bump in sales for toys as the American consumer continues to mourn the loss of Toys ‘R’ Us and jilted suppliers work with existing retailers to offload excessive inventories,” said Bitar. “Additionally, the toy market for adults continues to expand with collectibles, board and card games and retro releases. And, beauty will win out based both on gift-giving and self-indulgence.”

“For retailers to win, they’ll need to make product assortments easy to navigate for gift givers who will be looking to get in and get out as quickly and easily as possible. Categories like apparel should go beyond traditional gender and age groupings and instead use images to illustrate to gift givers how products can be worn or used, how they look and go together in combination, something very important for e-commerce sites too as categories like beauty lose their tactile experience behind a screen. Lastly, providing good, easy product wrapping that can be picked up in-store will win hearts, so more and more retailers will follow the lead of brands like Sephora and provide easy-to-assemble gift boxes and bags that don’t require wrapping at all.”

Retail Performance Pulse flash reporting over Thanksgiving weekend
To empower retailers and enable media to benchmark performance with frequent, near real-time updates, RetailNext will again publish its daily Thanksgiving Flash, a composite of key in-store retail metrics for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Based on the monthly Retail Performance Pulse, the Flash is developed from specialty and large format retail stores on the RetailNext analytics platform within the continental United States, and will be available to RetailNext customers and media outlets starting Friday, November 23.

About RetailNext
The first retail vertical IoT platform to bring e-commerce style shopper analytics to brick-and-mortar stores, brands and malls, RetailNext is a pioneer in focusing entirely on optimizing the shopper experience. Through its centralized SaaS platform, RetailNext automatically collects and analyzes shopper behavior data, providing retailers with insight to improve the shopper experience real time.

More than 425 retailers in over 75 countries have adopted RetailNext's analytics software and retail expertise to better understand the shopper journey in order to increase same-store sales, reduce theft and eliminate unnecessary costs. RetailNext is headquartered in San Jose, Calif. Learn more at www.retailnext.net.

###

Media Contact:
Ray Hartjen
RetailNext, Inc.
(925) 895-5441
ray.hartjen@retailnext.net

RetailNext Inc. and RetailNext are trademarks of RetailNext Inc. in the United States.

Ray Hartjen
RetailNext
9258955441
email us here