This week, our guest is Terry Clear, director of Replenishment and Sales Insights for 8th & Walton.
Lainie: Recent data from CNBC and the National Retail Federation show that retail sales rebounded in July and that categories like general merchandise, sporting goods, and grocery saw a strong double-digit or high single-digit year-over-year growth.
How can vendors and suppliers position themselves to capture this kind of growth?
Terry: So, there are some events that drove that increase in July. Amazon had its annual Amazon Prime event, and it was a longer event than it has been in the past.
Walmart also has an online event. Both of those two major retailers pushed a lot of purchasing activity to the consumers; I’m not sure that it’s a long-term trend. Some of that was a rebound from June.
Some of the increase was shoppers taking advantage of promotional activities from Amazon and Walmart. There may have been some pull forward from those who had extra money in their pockets to do a little pre-back-to-school or back-to-college shopping. But I think that Amazon and Walmart were the main drivers of that sales increase.
Lainie: One bit of data that also came up was that consumers were pulling purchases forward in July, ostensibly ahead of the latest tariffs. Is there anything that suppliers can do differently to align with accelerated buying patterns?
Terry: I don’t know how much of that is supported by solid data and how much is based on anecdote. Clearly, shoppers are not making purchasing decisions on consumable items. I need to buy diapers, paper towels, dish soap, dog food, or canned groceries. Tariffs are what they are.
That’s my regular pantry fill purchases. So, they are probably weighing those decisions, which go back to your previous question, and may have had an effect on general merchandise, sporting goods, and other categories where my purchase frequency is less often and the ticket prices may be higher.
It’s not because of the uncertainty of future tariffs. I might have bought something now instead of delaying the purchase until later in the year just because of that uncertainty. Some of it is, if I know I’m going to make a buying decision on a larger ticket item, I might go ahead and make that purchase now due to all the uncertainty about what the future price might be.
