The Channel Checkers » Uncategorized

Kohl’s Corp. Sees Stellar Sales in spite of Sluggish Retail Sector

Casey — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 23:15:40 +0000

Kohl’s Corp., the US department store chain, is having a reasonable year so far in spite of an overall sluggish retail sector. We interviewed 30 stores across the nation and asked how business was, whether there was any excess inventory, is the weak economy and housing market jinxing business and which women’s fashion line sells best? Of the 30 respondents, five or 16.6% described business as very strong. Twelve or 40% found it above average and 13 or 43.3% found business average. Ten respondents or 33.3% reported having no excess inventory while four respondents or 13.3% reported having some, namely in winter clothing which is typically discounted in spring. The majority of those polled, 13 or 43.3%, weren’t sure whether the housing market and weak economy were effecting business but seven respondents or 23.3% saw either some impact now or potential future impact. Only ten or 33.3 % said the markets had no bearing on sales at all. Women’s apparel sales ran the gamete from Apt. 9, the dress casual line ranking as the best seller with five respondents or 16.6%. Croft & Barrow, the outerwear and sleepwear line tied with Sonoma, the lifestyle line with four respondents or 13.3% while Vera Wang, Levis and Daisy Fuentes, which makes accessories, swimwear and casual wear brought in three responses or 10%. Chaps, the career and slinky evening wear line ranked bottom with two respondents or 6.6%.

Chipotle Mexican Grill Chosen for Menu, Not Organic Food; the Burrito Wraps It Up

Casey — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 20:33:22 +0000

Chipotle Grill is a hot topic these days with a massive valuation and a market segment in between casual dining and fast food. How is the chain doing and what are customers looking to get there? We surveyed 30 stores to take a look.

Our most recent survey of Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurants shows that a whopping 80% of respondents indicated that customers choose Chipotle because of the menu, compared with 9% because the food is organic and 11% who cited both the menu and the organic food as the reason. The star of the menu that keeps them coming in is the Burrito, chosen 57% of the time; varieties ordered included chicken (41%), steak (29%), barbacoa (12%) and carnitas (6%). The Burrito Bowl was the second most frequently ordered item (26%) followed by Fajita Burritos (14%) and Tacos (3%). The average check size for a party of two is $23.83. More respondents (74%) indicate that the restaurants are crowded at lunch time than reported that dinner had the bigger crowds (26%). Compared to a year ago, 43% of sites reported that the restaurant is busier, 46% say it is the same and 6% say it is less busy. Restaurants less than a year old made up 26% of the responses with older restaurants representing 74%.

Sears Stores “Less Busy” According to Many Employees.

Casey — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 18:21:31 +0000

We have recently conducted a survey on Sears and Kmart stores in the U.S. which are owned collectively under the banner of Sears Holdings (SHLD).

We asked about store activity in this survey and 20% of respondents reported that stores were “less busy”. 20% negative response to questions in our survey is reason for concern given that traditionally store employees tend to be more positive or optimistic about retail store activity.

In addition to our temperature check on store activity we asked if the Sears and Kmart locations would be having PRE-CHRISTMAS sales and the answer across the board was yes. We also asked if there was excess inventory of items and the answer to this according to over 70% of respondents was “yes, excess inventory”.

The top selling items at Sears and Kmart locations were flat screen TV’s (25%), video games and video game consoles (20%) and Craftsman tools (10%). We did not see any strong showing for sales of clothing items or for consumer durables like washers and dryers. We believe that the heavy dose of electronics being sold at Sears could produce lower profit margins as we believe Sears is selling these items below the leading electronics retailers to help bring in business for these items.

USB Drive Market Share Shifts Away from Sandisk

Casey — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 18:58:42 +0000

We recently completed a survey on best selling USB drive brands. USB flash drives seem to be a growing trend for off-PC storage for personal and corporate use. In an article at SeekingAlpha Avi Ifergan claims that “SanDisk is the dominant player in all markets it has entered. It has approximately 42% market share in North America; In Europe, it doubled its market share in the last 12 months to 28% and indicated that it is experiencing difficulties in meeting European demand; in Asia and Australia market share is 23%.”

Our just completed survey reveals that Sandisk was cited as the top selling brand by 37% of our respondents down somewhat from the published 42% number (which we believe Avi pulled from NPD group research.) Kingston was a very strong number two as it was cited as the best selling brand by 26% of all respondents. HP did surprisingly well from our perspective and garnered top selling mentions from 19% of our respondents. These answers we believe could be favoring the HP brand in total as opposed to being objective about just UBS drives. We called into many office and consumer elelectronics stores which all do significant business in HP products as a family including computers, printers and peripherals besides USB drives.

Memorex (11%) PNY (7%), Tanscend (4%) and Sony (4%) were also mentioned by some survey respondents as the best selling USB drive brand.