Worrying Retail Trends: 2017 Will Deliver Profits, But Also More Bankruptcies In The Sector

Well, the 2016 retail sales results are in, as always, there were winners and losers. Many large retailers posted very low single-digit earnings during the holiday shopping season last year, while Amazon posted decent double-digit earnings. Now I have witnessed a trend that is a bit puzzling. During my holiday shopping this year as a consumer, I noticed that many online retailers that also had brick-and-mortar stores did not have the items from the website in their store inventory. This annoys the customers.

After all, if you want it right away, or if you like the idea of ​​shopping, or if it’s an item that you really need to buy from the store because of its fit or size, like clothing, you have to give it a try. but if you receive the story and it is not available, or they don’t have it, for example I went to the sports authority and couldn’t find any of those clip-on bike shoes, they don’t have them in the store, but I definitely need to try on the shoes, I didn’t want to ask for them, for them to come and not fit me, which means I would have to return them and then order something else.

Turns out, he was right in thinking this because when I went to his competitor’s sports chalet, the shoes I wanted to buy didn’t fit my normal size, they were half my size. I didn’t notice anyone on The Sports Authority’s website mentioning that the sizes were half the size of that particular brand of cycling shoe. This confuses customers and makes it very annoying, it is something that brick-and-mortar stores are going to find out even if they are trying to cut costs and trim their inventories for higher profits.

It’s almost like the problem we had with JIT or just-in-time inventory and supply chain. Since warehouses were no longer available, things were backed up to the factory, awaiting the next run of the finite capacity programming model at the manufacturing facility. People want what they want and they want it now, and they want the best price, if not, they will find a way to get it. Hope the retail industry gets it.

So how are things going in the sector? I’ve outlined just one challenge in keeping customers happy, but there are many more when it comes to traditional versus online retailers.

On January 12, 2017, the New York Times published an article titled; “Amazon will add 100,000 jobs as traditional retail collapses,” by Nellson D. Schwartz and Nick Winfield. The article noted:

“The 100,000 hires it plans for the next 18 months represent a 56 percent increase from the 180,000 full-time employees in the United States at the end of 2016. Amazon has more than 300,000 full and part-time employees worldwide. “.

On January 17, 2017 we learned that: “Limited stores go bankrupt”, from an article in Total Retail, with another article explaining the company’s problems in the WSJ (Wall Street Journal).

Quite a dichotomy we have here, and it’s clear who the real winner is, the question is can online retailers or dual retailers figure out how to make it work before they lose their job? Please consider this.