Black Friday deals are arriving earlier this year as U.S. consumers are still dealing with higher prices from a year ago. As a result, retailers know that shoppers have become price-sensitive and are looking for steep promotions and discounts. Therefore, retailers have ramped up the amount of merchandise on sale, hoping that more shoppers will open their wallets ahead of Black Friday. The discount penetration (how much of the assortment is on sale) rose to 42% in November. LSEG discovered this in a collaboration with Centric Market Intelligence, formerly StyleSage, which analyzes retailers, brands, online trends and products across the

Due to inflation, several retailers are already dealing with higher cost of goods and services (COGS) – and dealing with the supply chain crisis. They just finished reporting Q3 earnings; 141 retailers have already discussed inflation worries, and 192 have mentioned the supply issues during their earnings calls. Consumers’ short-term inflation expectations rose again, with the median cost of living increase for next year pushing up from 5.7% to 6.0%. This increase is twice the pace of expectations for income growth, which slid to 2.8% from 3.0%, according to the New York Federal Reserve. As a result, the latest Ipsos

The recent Refinitiv/Ipsos reading on consumer sentiment around reopening the economy suggests that the bulk of consumers are willing to attend a live concert, theater performance or movie theater — when there is a proven coronavirus vaccine, even if that’s a year or more from now. This doesn’t bode well for mall retailers that had already been hurting from weak store traffic pre-coronavirus pandemic. Recently, Simon Property sued Gap for not paying rent, and if shoppers are not ready to return to the mall, owners could potentially face more financial trouble. This is reflected in the Refinitiv earnings forecasts. What’s

The Refinitiv U.S. Retail and Restaurant Q3 earnings index is expected to rise 2.5% — considerably below last year’s 18.6% Q3 2018 earnings growth. When looking at the earnings growth rates for Q3 for the 209 retailers tracked by Refinitiv, the Hotels, Restaurant & Leisure sector has the highest earnings growth rate at 7.1%. On the flip side, the Household Durables has the weakest anticipated growth compared to Q3 2019. The Household Durables earnings growth rate is being affected by negative earnings growth expectations among homebuilding and household appliances companies. The homebuilding companies William Lyon Homes and Toll Brothers are

U.S. consumers went out on Thursday, Nov. 22 — Thanksgiving evening — to shop for Black Friday deals, but it was not the same as previous years. A decade ago, shoppers rushed to the malls for doorbuster deals, and felt a sense of urgency to take advantage of the timely promotions before they disappeared. Today, however, online deals have stolen a lot of that sense of urgency. Walmart, for example, started offering online holiday deals in the beginning of November. As a result, shoppers indicated that they now go to Black Friday because of tradition, and for the experience to