Quick Take — US retailers lengthen Black Friday offer periods to attract shrinking shoppers

Walmart, Amazon, Target and Macy’s are among the US retailers already offering steep discounts under the Black Friday banner, long before it actually arrives this week. Despite this, sales of non-food units fell by 3% year-on-year in the week ending 16 November, according to data from Circana, which compiles data from retail outlets. The National Retail Federation predicts that winter holiday sales will reach nearly $1 trillion in the US in November and December, a record $902 per person. But the rate of spending growth is expected to be about 2.5-3.5%, the slowest since 2018

Quick Take — Walmart beats forecasts and inflation

Like-for-like sales in the US were up 5.3 per cent, with the number of transactions net of fuel up 3.1 per cent. Among the biggest drivers of sales were food products, where the number of units sold was the highest in four years, and pharmaceuticals, where Walmart reported an increase in sales of GLP-1 weight loss drugs. E-commerce sales in the US increased by 22%

What is amazing is that Walmart continued to expand its market share in the third quarter, with sales from households earning more than $100,000 a year accounting for three-quarters of the gains – in terms of share gains – in the US, CEO Doug McMillon told analysts.

compiled 19 November, updated 21 November 2024

Quick Take — Amazon launches non-food virtual discount shop against Temu and Shein and first price line in groceries

Amazon just launched an ultracheap bargain store that takes aim at rivals Temu and Shein. Just don’t look for it on your computer-Amazon is keeping the new store largely separate from its main site, for good reason. Financial Times Newsletter 14 November 2024.

Below: the fancy private label – name happy belly – that Amazon created for food in 2016, which looked a lot like the fancy brands Esselunga had in the 1960s and 1970s . Now there seems to have been a noticeable ‘change of pace’ with the new Amazon Saver first-price line.

Compiled 14 November, updated 15 November 2024

Quick Take — 7-Eleven will build 500 ‘food-forward’ shops between 2025 and 2027, giving up the sale of non-food products (including petrol)

These shops will expand the ‘hot food assortment that our customers are looking for, with take-away cases, specialty beverages, self-service roller grills, and in-store cooking offerings’. 7-Eleven operates, franchises or licenses more than 83,000 convenience stores in 19 countries and regions, including approximately 13,229 locations in the United States and Canada.

Already today, 7-Eleven shops look like convenience stores, even in Japan.

From I to We: Human Resources

With the enormous development of the non-food part and the emergence of marketing, we create hundreds of jobs, to which more will be added in food purchasing and quality control. My rule is to move from 'I' to 'we': and results pay off, because an internal survey in 2003 conducted by CIRM shows that in two years the proportion of those declaring themselves 'satisfied' or 'very satisfied' has risen from 49 per cent to 72.1 per cent.