3 Retailers That Made The Most Of The 2019 Holiday Season
Zacks Investment Research | Jan 21, 2020 08:32PM ET
The holiday season turned out to be a blissful one as consumers continued to fill their shopping carts. Even six fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas compared with last year could not take away the sheen of the season. A buoyant stock market, sturdy labor market, rising income and improving consumer confidence worked in favor of retailers.
Notably, retailers stay on their toes during the holiday season, the busiest part of the year, flooding the market with offers and promotions. They sweep buyers off their feet with early-hour store openings, huge discounts, promotional strategies, and free shipping on online purchases. Since the season accounts for a sizeable chunk of yearly revenues, retailers grab every opportunity to drive footfall. Not to mention, these come at the cost of margins.
Holiday season and retail are synonymous, and this festive period Americans were in the mood to spend. A report from National Retail Federation (NRF) indicates that holiday retail sales, excluding automobile dealers, gasoline stations and restaurants, increased 4.1% year over year to $730.2 billion during 2019. Meanwhile, the retail trade association also highlighted that online and other non-store sales rose 14.6% to $167.8 billion during the festive season.
3 Retailers Who Raised a Toast
Zumiez Registers Strong Holiday Sales Growth
The season turned out to be a jolly good one for Zumiez Inc. (NASDAQ:ZUMZ) . The impressive performance prompted management to lift sales and earnings view for fourth-quarter fiscal 2019. The company reported 6.8% comparable sales growth for the nine-week period (ended Jan 4, 2020) compared with 4% growth witnessed in the nine-week period (ended Jan 5, 2019).
The company now expects comparable sales for the final quarter to increase around 6% compared with prior view of 2-4% growth. Adjusted earnings per share for the fourth quarter are anticipated to be $1.34-$1.38, up from previous estimate of $1.26-$1.32.
This Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) company has been gaining from providing differentiated assortments. The company has considerably improved customers’ experience by integrating its physical and digital networks. This allows customers to access inventories through all channels, alongside availing facilities like buy online, pick up in store, and reserve online and pay in store. You can see Zacks Investment Research
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