Kurt Barnard

Kurt Barnard
discount dragging home others retailers stores
Discount stores are doing very well, and home-oriented retailers are doing very well. But most of the others are dragging their heels.
comparable difficult discount driven june month retailers sales
June was a difficult month for retailers and it's also typically a month during which comparable sales are driven by discount sales.
call discount july unless
July was a washout, a bust, whichever way you want to call it, unless you were a discount retailer,
arena bit discount efficient itself large likely perhaps retail store
From what I've seen, Sears is well underway to making itself into a more efficient and a more pleasant-to-shop retail establishment. It is likely to become a powerhouse in the mass-market arena and perhaps look a little bit like a combination of a large discount store and Kohl's.
bargain cautious discount hunting money saving seeing spending stores stretching
What we are seeing is that consumers' cautious spending is now stretching to the low-priced discount stores as well as to the other stores. ...Today, saving money is chic. Bargain hunting is fashionable.
consumer continues department discount shift specialty spending stores strong
There has been, and continues to be, a strong shift of consumer spending away from traditional department stores and specialty stores over to discount stores.
avoiding consumer discount drifting rapidly spending stores
Consumer spending is avoiding the mall-based, high-priced stores and is now drifting rapidly to the discount and low-priced segment.
arrival discount door itself manhattan maybe opens sale splendid time
It is time that Manhattan got itself its first really splendid discount store, so the sale opens the door to the arrival of Target, or maybe even Wal-Mart.
broke clearance department despite discount doors fact people stayed stores strong
Despite the fact that it's a clearance month, we can still see strong trends. People stayed away from department stores and they broke down the doors at discount stores.
gap time
What the Gap is doing is not only what it must be doing, but what it should have done a long time ago.
clear economy evidence frightened happening list numbers point public saw today
What's happening is very simple. The numbers we saw today are clear evidence that the American public is shell-shocked to the point of being frightened over a big long list of circumstances surrounding the economy over which they have no power, no control.
bottom checks effect hurt itself nightmare results retailers tax worst
The worst part of these results is that they show that the effect of the tax rebate checks has petered out. This is a nightmare in itself for retailers and it doesn't bode well for Christmas. Also, we'll probably see more markdowns now, more than retailers anticipated for the holidays. That will hurt their bottom line.
companies consumer controls decent demand difficult economic evidence good however inventory nobody orders planning spring time until
They are all planning very cautiously, very carefully. Some companies have very decent inventory controls, but however good those controls are they still have to do some economic forecasting, and forecasting is a little difficult this time around. Nobody is going to spring for big orders until there's evidence that consumer demand is back, and there is no such evidence to date.
clear consumer decent evidence expect holiday last modest sales slow spending three
The sales clear evidence of modest consumer spending slow down. We expect a decent holiday sales season, but an unspectacular one. The last three have been spectacular, particularly the last one.