Hey Friends,
What a week it has been… The SuperBowl amassed an astonishing 123.4 million viewers on Sunday. CBS cited the event as the most-watched telecast in history, beating 2023 Super Bowl viewership. According to study by Nielsen, NFL games made up 93 of the top 100 broadcasts of the year. For those that watched, the e-commerce company TEMU dominated a marketing campaign that featured more than $15 million in coupons and giveaways. TEMU launched in the U.S. in 2022 and had more than 50 million monthly U.S. active users as of January, according to market intelligence, up nearly 300% year-over-year. According to another study, TEMU users spent an average of 23 minutes per week on the app in the fourth quarter compared with 18 minutes on Amazon and 22 minutes on eBay.
Online retailer Zulily’s inventory is up for sale as it winds down it’s assets to maximize value for the companies creditors. After the announcement in December, the struggling e-tailer’s remaining products — $85 million worth — are being liquidated along with warehouse equipment. Launched in 2010 and based in Seattle, Zulily specialized in children's and women's apparel and aimed to compete with large e-commerce companies like Amazon, Temu, and Shein. It went public in 2013, and at one point was valued at approximately $9 billion.
Retail sales in January nearly matched December’s busy holiday spending and rose significantly year over year, according to the CNBC/NRF Retail Monitor. Total retail sales, excluding automobiles and gasoline but including restaurants, were down just 0.16% month over month and up 2.34% unadjusted year over year in January. That compared with increases of 0.44% month over month and 3.07% year over year in December.
Some key info:
Online and other non-store sales - up 0.68% month over month seasonally adjusted and up 25.47% year over year unadjusted.
Clothing and accessories - up 0.52% month over month and up 5.9% year over year unadjusted.
Health and personal care stores - up 0.51% month over month seasonally adjusted and up 9.7% year over year unadjusted
Electronics and appliance stores - up 1.34% month over month seasonally adjusted but down 4.21% year over year unadjusted.
Furniture and home furnishings stores - down 0.97% month over month seasonally adjusted and down 6.35% year over year unadjusted
The 2024 Thales Digital Trust Index reveals that only 8% of consumers trust retailers enough to share personal information with them. The study surveyed over 12,400 consumers, finding that 87% are willing to share data with organizations but expect privacy rights, while 46% of participants want a clear view of what they are consenting to. The top-three most-trusted sectors are banking, healthcare, and government services, while retail and hospitality lag behind. Over a quarter of consumers have abandoned brands due to excessive data demands or concerns about data usage. Expectations for privacy rights include being informed about data collection, data erasure rights, and data correction and movement rights. Thales emphasizes the importance of balancing data security and user experience to foster trust in digital interactions.
Hoka has announced a new brand president, a little over a week after naming a CEO succession plan. Robin Green is tasked with driving growth and innovation at Hoka, after spending the last 17 years at Nike serving as the global vice president of Men’s Running and Fitness. Hoka reported on it’s last earnings call that for the first nine months of the fiscal year, the brand’s revenues were up 25% year over year, thanks to a nearly 50% increase in DTC.
On the retail theft front…..Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis proposed new penalties to curb retail theft and porch piracy, announcing new legislation during a news conference Tuesday. The legistlation outlines, a person will only get a felony after committing five different retail thefts within 45 days. DeSantis wants to change this.
Prior to it’s quarterly earnings report, Instacart announced that it will lay of 7%, roughly 250 employees. They will also announce a $500M share buy-back. In a letter to shareholders, CEO Fidji Simo wrote, “This will allow us to reshape the company and flatten the organization so we can focus on our most promising initiatives that we believe will transform our company and industry over the long-term.”
And to finish with some sporting news…..Tiger Woods signs apparel and footwear deal with TaylorMade following his split with Nike. Announced via press conference at the Genesis Invitational, the PGA Tour Event Tiger Woods hosts, Sun Day Red will be available to consumers beginning early May.