A weekly podcast with the latest e-commerce news and events. In episode 264 we review the April US Dept of Commerce Retail Data, the Q1 US Dept of Commerce E-Commerce data, and earnings reports from Walmart, Target, TJ Max, Macy’s, Lowes, and Home Depot.
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US Dept of Commerce Data
April Sales – Flat vs. March 2021, up 41% vs. April 2020 (severely Covid impacted month). Many categories were wildly up, most notably Apparel which was up 727% vs the same month last year.
Q1 E-Commerce – Up 7.7% vs Q4 2020, up 39.1% vs Q1 2020.
Retail Q1 Earnings
- Walmart – US E-Commerce up 37% YoY, same-store sales saw up 6% YoY
- Target – US E-Commerce up 50% YoY, same-store sales saw up 18% YoY
- Macys – US E-Commerce up 34% YoY, same-store sales saw up 62.5% YoY
- TJ Max – Same-store sales up 16% YoY (E-Commerce not disclosed)
- Lowes – US E-Commerce up 36,5% YoY, same-store sales saw up 11.3% YoY
- Home Depot – Same-store sales were up 29.9% YoY, they did not disclose e-commerce for the first time (which is usually a warning sign).
Episode 264 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Wednesday May 19, 2021.
Transcript
Jason:
[0:24] Welcome to the Jason and Scot show this is episode 264 being recorded on Wednesday May 19 20 21 I’m your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I’m here with your co-host Scot Wingo.
Scot:
[0:40] Thanks Jason and welcome back Jason Scott show listeners.
Jason I’m still basking in the Afterglow of that conversation with Brad Stone that was really good and if listeners enjoyed that episode or any of the other ones that we put out any of the other 262 episodes available for there listening pleasure.
We would love it if you would take a second right now pause the show will after I explain this pasta show go and review us in your favorite,
podcast listening technology so if your on iTunes and using that that would be great or Spotify or.
I don’t know the Amiga podcast listener whatever floats your boat if you would go in there and rate US that would be great because.
That’s how we get paid here at the Jason Scott show we get paid by per review of so we really appreciate that.
[1:31] Jason I wanted to pick your brain before we jump into some numbers that the topic of the show is going to be looking at some of the results from some of the retailers we track and then also there’s some other data,
before we jump into that I have seen a lot of people on Twitter talking about it’s either an app or a site that I don’t know anything about so I figured you would.
And I think it’s called Chez in or shine or she in or something like that it’s spelled sh Ein
they came on my radar because it is a gues a Deca cord so it’s north of a 10 billion dollar valuation and it kind of came out of nowhere with over 10 billion dollars in Revenue last year
so what is this giant monster site that that I haven’t heard of that’s on everyone’s radar all of a sudden.
Jason:
[2:19] Yeah you you nailed it it’s pronounced she in.
And I it sent it’s a Chinese company it sounds like a Chinese word but I think that’s actually a trick I think it’s in English name and I.
I believe it was originally she’s an Insider and it got shortened to she in.
Scot:
[2:43] Nice I don’t know if that’s proper English but we’ll go there.
Jason:
[2:48] Yeah that might have been why they shortened it.
Scot:
[2:51] Sometimes that gets people attention so it can be a good good strategy.
Jason:
[2:56] And the URL is much easier to type and when you’re a deck of cards you need a good URL.
Scot:
[3:01] Yeah maybe she’s an was taken.
Jason:
[3:05] I have a feeling it was.
Yeah so they’re a fashion brand they’re a direct-to-consumer fashion brand I mentioned that they’re based in China.
To my knowledge there not selling Direct in China yet which is interesting,
so they mostly sell in international markets including they have a significant presence in the US so,
so us listeners can go to she and.com it’s glittery sh e i in.com.
Um and shop for apparel.
[3:41] And they would self described themselves as real-time fashion and so the differentiation would be you kind of have,
the original you know Trend based fashion retailers like a J.Crew or Abercrombie & Fitch,
and then you know they really got challenged by these so-called fash fast-fashion Brands like H&M and Zara that you know would bring bring products to Market much faster,
and therefore you know have an opportunity to hit Trends much more quickly,
they had you know wildly more agile Supply chains and then she and takes that to a much further extreme,
they allegedly have a supply chain that can you know get something from idea to Market in three days more typically it’s five to seven days,
and you know instead of putting putting Brands out there at the equivalent of the Paris fashion show and taking orders,
um they’re primarily working through influencers on various social media platforms throughout the world,
um primarily micro influencers and creating demand,
for their apparel and they’re using the data from all of their sales and their direct relationships with all these consumers.
[5:04] To dictate what garments they make and what styles they leaned into and how they apportion,
dollars to inventory so that’s that’s where the kind of real-time fashion comes in that they’re sort of a data-driven fashion.
Company that would kind of next-generation hm or a sauce or somebody like that.
Scot:
[5:30] Cool so these cases a Kardashian says some kind of shade of pink is going to be the hot thing and then four days their sites covered in that product is that kind of the.
Jason:
[5:40] Yeah yeah although I I think a Nuance but more often it’s a favorite yoga instructor on Instagram that has 20,000 followers that says something is really cool,
and so then enough of that gets made for those 20,000 followers.
Scot:
[5:59] Wow nursing solo actually be small small volumes like that.
Jason:
[6:02] Yeah the I do believe that they are smaller runs but it’s like they’re more likely to be working with those those kind of influencers than a Kardashian.
And arguably those kind of influencers are a lot more authentic I think you know most most.
Kardashian followers with know that like give Kim you know put something in her feed that she got paid a million dollars to do.
Scot:
[6:26] Very cool I know I know your kind of giddy with excitement about data and because last Friday the Department of Commerce came out with one set of data and then
yesterday they came out with the other so we have now got the complete look at the data and
I know I’m excited to hear your analysis and how did your data science robot do with all this new data coming in.
Jason:
[6:51] Pretty well pretty well so there were kind of two releases so it’s a big week Friday morning we got our monthly release and,
the super brief primer every month the US Department of Commerce releases retail sales data and they release an advanced version which is kind of pulmonary and has some kind of course categories,
that is data for the previous month so on Friday they release the Advanced Data for April they release a more.
Bigger sample size data set with more granular categories that’s called the standard release and that’s a month.
Inner ear so that would be the March data,
and then once a quarter they release some specific e-commerce data and that e-commerce data got released yesterday so so we have both the the monthly data and the e-commerce data to talk about.
Um and so let’s maybe start with the monthly data Everyone likes to talk about.
This month’s sales versus last month’s sales which is I always remind people in retail isn’t isn’t.
A very good way to think about it but just because that’s the way you’ll always see it reported I will tell you that April retail sales were flat versus March so exactly the same.
[8:15] But if we compare April of 20 21 to April of 2020 retail sales were up a whopping forty six percent.
And it’s probably obvious to you why they are so dramatically up but April was the,
the month in the United States that was most impacted by covid and that was you know right when like we had all the fear and people didn’t know how it was going to play out and.
Spending dramatically curtail the last April retail sales fell off a cliff so we’re comping against.
A really soft number and then there’s there’s actually still some economic stimulus trickling in to the April number this year so.
A perfect Confluence to have super high comp so and we did 46 percent.
[9:06] When you talk about this data it’s always kind of important to remember there’s you know hit there’s winners and losers because of the pandemic so the,
by far the the outlier data from from this was that the apparel category which has.
Like I would argue had a lot of headwinds before the pandemic got absolutely blitzed in the pandemic.
Apparel had the greatest comp month in the history of apparel since someone like invented the first fur to put on the naked guy.
Perry was up 200 and or I’m sorry 727 percent from April of 2020.
So good luck comping against that next year.
Scot:
[9:51] Yeah that’s gonna be a record I mean I know you’ve kept this data for a while but so I like the biggest.
Jason:
[9:57] Yeah it’s like by almost an order of magnitude it’s the biggest it’s the biggest jump I’ve ever seen in any category a bunch of in a way like.
Clothing with so soft and things have opened up a lot this this month so it is a good sign for apparel and is we’re going to you know touch on later there other reasonable signs that that apparel is recovering and I would even say.
It’s recovering a little more prominently than I might have expected it to so so that’s great news for everyone in the apparel industry.
I’m happy for all of them there are other categories that were.
Helped by the pandemic that were still wildly up right so you know people didn’t travel during the pandemic so they spent a lot more money on their home.
[10:45] So furniture and home Home Goods was a good category for the whole year furniture and Home Goods was up to hundred percent from from last April a hundred ninety six percent.
Sporting Goods which was another huge category that benefited from people not going to the gym they were up a hundred and fifty five percent from last year Electronics which had kind of a mixed pandemic some subcategories of electronics really good somewhere bad,
um but Electronics was up a hundred thirty nine percent so a bunch of these categories were way up.
Restaurants and bars you know kind of like close you know I had a had a tragic pandemic they were up a hundred and Seventeen percent so.
A bunch of the categories that that makeup you know retail were wildly up and then obviously there had to be some.
I think almost no one was down in fact I think nothing was down from April of last year but the you know some of the categories that didn’t have his biggest slow down last April,
had had more like typical typical growth like the general merchants.
You know that didn’t have to close in April at all like they’re up 15% year-over-year largely because they they didn’t have as big a drop last year.
[12:02] And all that averaged out to what did I say 40 39 percent today.
Forty-six percent so that’s kind of the story of overall retail sales,
and then you say well what about e-commerce and so e-commerce data is not monthly its quarterly so we on yesterday got the q1 data for 2021,
um so again two ways to think about that q1 versus Q for so versus last quarter and q1 versus Q 1 of last year so year-over-year and again I always encourage you,
I think you’re over here for retail data so q1 is up 7.7% from Q4.
[12:48] Which is actually a good number like ordinarily you would expect e-commerce to slow down and Q 1 versus Q4 because que no que for such a big quarter.
All of retail was up seven point eight percent so so e-commerce kind of exactly mirrored retailgeek growth looking at q1 versus q 4,
but when you look at Q 1 versus q1 of last year and so again last year was not pandemic impacted,
um it’s a much different story e-commerce was up 39.1% q1 of 2020 versus q1 of 2019 so very robust growth much bigger than typically what we see.
And that compares against Seventeen percent retail growth so that kind of in a nutshell highlights the dramatic acceleration of e-commerce as a result of the pandemic.
And again you can kind of drill down into some categories and the Biggest Gainer would have been food and beverage and that makes perfect sense right because again.
There wasn’t a lot of grocery e-commerce before the pandemic and everyone weren’t how to shop online.
For groceries so e-commerce grocery was up a hundred and seven percent.
[14:09] I’m trying to think what other categories had a the the do-it-yourself and Home Improvement category was up 63 percent,
the general merchandise which has a lot of food and Essentials in it was up 62 percent,
so you know a bunch of categories had had,
you know way outsized e-commerce growth so that’s what the industry did and so as a reminder.
When when you’re hearing all these companies do their earnings and they talk about their e-commerce growth and they throw out a big number you really ought to be comparing it to this 39 percent to see if they grew more or less than the industry average.
Scot:
[14:52] Then if I remember Amazon international did but us was a little below yes it’s like 36.
Jason:
[15:00] But in there right in that ballpark they not surprisingly they closely mirror the total industry growth because you know they alone depending on how you count our call it 35 to 45 percent of all e-commerce in the US.
Scot:
[15:16] On the crazy still can’t get the 727 percent out of my head on that number.
If you went and annualized it still would be like 60% I guess you have to compound it I don’t know.
Because it effectively the same as like not shopping for a year and then turning it back on is that kind of like essentially what happened but it seems like it’s even higher than that.
Jason:
[15:38] Yeah it is deeper than that like I’ll be honest the it’s fun to talk about this stuff but it’s such a meaningless number to comp against like month-over-month to come to comp against last year when April 20-21 was the,
the most like unorthodox month in the history of retail so to kind of,
Rebel things out a little bit what you could do is you could say well what are we your year-to-date this year versus last year,
and year-to-date apparel is up 50 percent versus last year so,
that is still very meaningful you know if you think about year-to-date it is 4 months and 3 of those months weren’t impacted by the pandemic.
Like fifty percent growth is still is pretty significant.
But it does you know apparel is a wild outlier and how fast a grew this month but if you work year-to-date you know category like Sporting Goods has grown more your today than apparel has.
Scot:
[16:41] This may be one of the first time off lines grown faster than e-commerce to.
Jason:
[16:47] In that one category.
Scot:
[16:47] I mean I know it’s a month in a quarter yeah no I mean like all in it was.
Jason:
[16:52] 7.7 versus 7.8 yeah Fair.
Scot:
[16:56] Arson.
Cool and then so then we had a bunch of retailers actually put up their numbers so then that’s super helpful to kind of so now we have this kind of Baseline so that’s the rising tide
and I know you are official Walmart tracker what did you see out of Walmart’s numbers.
Jason:
[17:16] Yeah so before we jump into that list maybe just have a moment of appreciation for all of the retail reporters this week because I feel like.
We had a ton of earnings calls and a lot of them are like late at night or off our so I do pity some of those guys that had.
Tour card for one week a year or when we could quarter I’m teasing so that being said.
[17:40] Walmart like I would argue was a significant winner in the pandemic and they continue to have strong momentum so.
I’m not going to get into all the financial numbers that you know are tied to the stock performance because you know I don’t care that much about the stock performance of these companies I care how much stuff they sold,
so the two numbers I’m can I’m caring about the most our same store sales comps and e-commerce comps,
so same store sales growth for Walmart was up six percent,
versus last year and e-commerce was a 37 percent versus this quarter last year.
[18:23] So those those are both good numbers normal same store sales growth like on average we look for is around three or four percent so six percent very healthy,
and you know e-commerce comps used to be in the kind of 15 to 25% so 37 percent,
is a good number I will tell you that because of the pandemic people are talking a lot about comps versus two years ago and so that six percent comp sounds good but,
this quarter’s retail sales were up 16% from retail sales two years ago so the year over two year calm,
is pretty pretty stellar for a retailer of the size of Walmart the largest retailer in the world to be up 16%,
is a sign that they were definitely a Shear gainer in the pandemic.
A couple of things I’ll point out that are interesting.
[19:22] One of the trends in the pandemic is people are choosing fewer stores and giving those stores more their business and so my argument is like we need to be looking at who the winners and losers are in that calculus Walmart’s a clear winner,
um their transactions are actually down three percent so three percent fewer people walked in and bought something from them,
but every time someone bought something they bought ten percent more than they did last year,
and again if we look at that on a two-year basis their transactions are actually down over eight percent and their basket sizes up 32% so what’s happening is,
you know I’m a millennial that used to get booze at Total Wine and produce from Whole Foods and shelf-stable stuff from Walmart is now getting everything from Walmart and.
[20:08] That’s a big win so so overall I would argue that that was a really strong quarter for for Walmart,
the story of all these earnings is going to be the e-commerce is still going to be wildly up but the growth is going to be decelerating so I kind of tried to pull the last several quarters from all these companies,
and kind of lay out a trend so first quarter to the pain Dynamic Walmart e-commerce is up 97% second quarter of the pandemic Walmart e-commerce is up 79% third quarter to the pandemic Walmart e-commerce is up,
sixty-nine percent so amazing run,
for the second largest e-commerce site in the US and then q1 they were up 37% so 37 percent is awesome in every way except that it’s much smaller than.
The last three quarters.
Scot:
[21:01] Yep and then I was reading the transcript and I saw that John ferner president of the US was talking about the last mile business I think one of the analysts asked about it
and you track this morning I do but they have a ton of stuff going on with Last Mile they’ve got that thing with the body cam they’ve got a
you know a drive Network kind of a thing,
this was interesting so they said we’re excited about our last small business we’ve been operating our first delivery vans that are Walmart branded in the market here in Arkansas
and we’re learning a lot as we go forward when I when I saw that I had this mental image of my street that already has a couple Prime Vans going up and down at a FedEx and UPS and I imagined a Walmart truck followed by a Target truck then a,
J.Crew truck and Abercrombie truck.
The target you know that’s a Target so I know where does this Home Depot and Lowe’s trucks where does this where does this go.
Jason:
[21:56] Yeah well first of all I think maybe Walmart just decided that there was you know it was too easy to buy a delivery van in the US so they wanted to make it more difficult.
Because as I’ve learned from you those things are in very short supply but yeah the.
Last Mile sales,
outside of the store are the story of the pandemic and we’ll be talking about that with some of these other earnings,
reports but I want to say I’m not sure Walmart disclosed it in in their earnings call but like I’ve seen other reports from Walmart that why curbside pickup was up a hundred and thirty percent class quarter.
Um so so all these these last mile things are way up and if you’re at Walmart scale you have to try a bunch of different things to try to be able to get.
[22:46] Those those groceries from the parking lot to the customer so most often it’s the customer comes to the parking lot and picks it up.
But but Walmart you know is partnering with a lot of third-party delivery services so you know I think they sort of have a network of them including instacart that they use in some markets.
Um they started their own delivery service where they contract drivers to drive for to them and those drivers were mostly using private vehicle so they you know they were competing against Uber to get drivers to drive Walmart orders to people’s homes,
that’s called spark delivery and there’s a flavor of that where they tried to recruit Walmart employees to be the drivers,
and so what I think John was talking about specifically in the earnings is a specific variant of that spark delivery where instead of the driver using a private vehicle that they’re using a test Fleet of Walmart branded vehicles,
and there’s a bunch of benefits for that when you’re delivering grocery you can have refrigerated Vans and climate control,
so you can start doing more deliveries per trip instead of like kind of point-to-point single deliveries which is what you mostly have to do with.
Independent contractors and private Vehicles so I think that’s what he was talking about but as you pointed out Walmart also has in home,
delivery that I forget what they call it but they have a porch delivery service where they install.
[24:13] Coolers in your porch and deliver to that they’re you know they’re they’re wisely,
kind of testing every delivery method you can imagine and there is demand for all those things but don’t lose sight of the fact that the high volume big money for these guys that aren’t like predominantly in,
in high density metropolitan areas like Walmart is curbside pickup it’s people coming to the store and picking up their orders.
Scot:
[24:39] Nursing so you’re not not envisioning 40,000 Walmart trucks are Vans delivering stuff every day.
Jason:
[24:45] I doubt it you know II think we’re going to I think I have a feeling that Amazon’s last mile delivery capacity is going to grow a lot faster than Walmart’s I just.
I just think when you like look at the demographics of the Walmart shopper,
the unit economics just don’t work as well but who knows maybe I’ll be wrong I can’t tell you in general consumers don’t want to pay for any of those delivery services so that’s the rub you got to find a way to profitably do that.
Now you know Walmart’s traditional Nemesis is Target and they also reported did you get a chance to look at the Target numbers at all.
Scot:
[25:27] I did I was looking for an announcement of Target Vance didn’t see one but on the results so some of the highlights.
In the u.s. stores were up 18% on a same store sales basis digitalism 50% so quite strong beating your friends at Walmart there.
That Blended together puts the us up at 22.9.
Same day which you know they’ve talked a lot about and then has been growing Way north of a hundred percent if I recall slow down to a paltry.
And that’s powered by shipped I’ve used that service a lot it’s really quite strong and they’ve done a really good job of that and integrating it right into the system and check out everything.
[26:08] Curbside curbside did give them their triple-digit grower up a hundred and twenty-three percent.
So that is interesting to see so maybe maybe we’re seeing people as the pandemic the thaws move from same-day delivery which does have a fee to more of a curbside.
As you’ve predicted pretty frequently.
[26:30] Ninety-five percent of their orders were filled from stores so this was this is one where they have been touting ship from store for a very long time and.
This number is crept up if I recall it was kind of like,
60% 80% 95% I think is the highest I’ve seen it that’s that’s a lot makes you question why do you have a warehouse if you’re only shipping five percent your orders out of a warehouse has the other flip side of that number,
and then the same kind of trend that you gave so if we kind of go back a year,
Q2 of 2020 e-commerce was a hundred ninety-five percent and then Q 355 percent.
Q 418 percent and then q1 of 2021,
it grew only fifty percent so definitely seeing these as as we’re lapping at least on the online side as or lapping the covid quarter,
the growth rates are coming down pretty substantially that’s that’s q1 you know could actually go,
yeah flat- on some of these folks as we get into Q2 because that was where the the bottoming out was just be interesting to see that but,
you know what’s nice for these omni-channel guys is the stores are picking up and you know in there comping very positively against this time last year so it’s been nice for them to have that portfolio of online offline and then even the subs of
delivery and curbside and whatnot.
Jason:
[27:54] Yeah no hundred percent and I think.
Again I think Walmart and Target are kind of the net winners in the in the pandemic so they you know both both put up great numbers like you know objectively the target numbers across the board are better it’s just against a much smaller base than.
Then Walmart so you know Walmart is impressive because they already were so big Target as are just super impressive and I feel like,
hugely beneficial that Target that they had Acquired and invested so much in shipped right before all this happened and made those capabilities.
Particularly valuable the thing I’ve been tracking is Target you know has recognized that that people like that last Mile and they like coming in the storm picking stuff up in the parking lot so they’ve been dramatically expanding what you can pick up so,
originally you couldn’t get groceries from curbside pickup at Target and so during the pandemic they slowly figured out how to add groceries to that mix and you know what they added this quarter that I think is really smart is adult beverages is alcohol.
[28:59] Which a lot of other retailers do not provide jet so you now can can you ship to get your booze so they’re both competing on last mile delivery with like the drizzly,
yeah and I guess one other thing I would just say about Target before I move on,
to me it’s a super interesting I think Walmart and Target both have Smart strategies for themselves and what’s interesting is how diametrically opposed they are I think Walmart is.
Really trying to compete on the long tail against Amazon of skus and try to have as big an assortment as possible and so they’ve leaned into the marketplace,
I think they’re up to north of 40 million excuse for sale now and to do that they’ve had you know really beef up their warehouses you know I think they’re like.
Between Thirty and forty e-commerce fulfillment centers now which is way more than anyone in the US with the exception of Amazon,
and they’ve even had to launch their own you know fulfillment by Walmart service to compete with with FBA from Amazon so Walmart’s doing all these things to compete.
[30:10] For that long tail against Amazon,
Target is gone the complete other way Target is said hey we’ve got 60,000 super desirable skus in our stores and those are the items we’re going to sell and so our e-commerce sales are going to be the same items that are in store sales are and that’s why they’re able to do that,
95% fulfill from store is because.
They’re selling you know a much smaller assortment of items and of course as we’ve talked about in the past a lot of those items are items that you can only get from Target because they’re exclusive Target brands that are doing very well so.
Scot:
[30:45] They’re digital Shelf deniers.
Jason:
[30:47] Yeah so the I think you know those are two interesting strategies that those two retailers are both employing to win.
So then there were some apparel retailers that reported this this week and I think that the big two ones were Macy’s and TJ Maxx I think Ralph Lauren’s going to report tomorrow morning so we’ll have to we’ll have to cover that one next time.
[31:10] Macy’s again apparel starting to have a recovery you know / that US Department of Commerce stuff you know Macy’s has a significant component of.
Of apparel,
so so their comps were as far as I know like the most up I would argue you know Macy’s struggled the most in the pandemic so that makes it,
easiest to comp up and their sales were decimated in April of 2020 so against work you know what kind of comping.
Um one one really bad or a partial bad month in their in their quarterly stuff but there comes were up 62 percent so that’s.
That’s astronomical and their e-commerce comps were up 34% so they’re about the only,
retail example I’ve seen where the stores grew more than e-commerce and so again following the theme.
Q1 of 2020 they had 53 percent e-commerce growth then Q 2 Q 3 they went to 27 percent growth Q4 they went to 21 percent growth,
and then q1 they re accelerated a 34% so that’s.
Um a very different shape than we’ve seen from almost any other retailer and my speculation is because they had such a rough time last year.
Scot:
[32:36] Yeah I think they mentioned they’re having a hard time hiring so I think a lot of this is cut a lot of people by surprise a little bit that you know the.
The surgeon to man so both sides on the down side of the V shape and then the upside is been hard for everyone to kind of manage them.
Jason:
[32:52] Yeah and we’re not even talking about but they’re all kinds of like supply chain challenges like you know everything still topsy-turvy I don’t like I don’t think the apparel guys were expecting this faster recovery I’m they might have hoped for it but I don’t think.
They plan from it from an inventory standpoint so there.
Scot:
[33:09] There’s a chip shortage so if you have any blue jeans that have a chip in them you’re toast.
Jason:
[33:13] Yeah yeah that is crushing some other Industries for sure and I’m desperate for a new Apple laptop so it’s going to it’s going to be heartbreaking if they delay those because of the chip shortage.
Scot:
[33:28] I think they make their own Sulkin so I think you’re okay.
Jason:
[33:30] They do but I still.
Scot:
[33:31] Is the Taiwan semiconductor.
Jason:
[33:33] Okay well we’ll see.
And TJ Maxx is I’m sort of sad because TJ Maxx is one of those retailers that does not report e-commerce growth.
You know it probably isn’t super significant because in their their industry e-commerce is tough because there.
The inventory depth is a lot less and things turn a lot faster so the argument is harder to put all your inventory up on a website,
but their comp sales had a nice recovery there their comp sales for the quarter were up 16% and so you know to kind of put that in perspective last year,
they they were down.
3% 5% and 3% so going from three- quarters in a row two up 16% is a,
a super wild healthy swing you know and I think it just kind of reflects the rebound we’re seeing in apparel.
Scot:
[34:37] Yeah and then the home builders which is home materials companies Lowe’s and Home Depot you know this has been another part of the economy that’s white hot right now in fact there are suffering shortages you can’t get wood
all kinds of things are really hard to get these days so it was interesting to see them solos I’ll do that when you do Home Depot,
Lowe’s they’re cops came out at eleven point three percent which is their same store sales e-commerce was up 36.5%.
[35:07] Which is pretty good you know if we kind of if we’re kind of keeping score here we had Target e-commerce at 50,
Walmart at 37 and then Macy’s at 34 so,
yeah these guys are right in there at 36.5 so in with the pack there,
but then if you look at the trend same story so Q 2 year ago effectively a hundred and thirty five percent Q3 of 20 2106,
Q4 of 20 21 21 and then q1 2021 36.5%,
when I see numbers like this I’m kind of thinking well if I’m the head of e-commerce there you know working on your 2021 bonus plan would have been pretty interesting you know how do you,
how do you know what you do you can’t talk about a hundred and forty percent growth so you know hopefully they all figured all that out and come in on or ahead of plan on that side,
so a big jump off there just like we saw with the other ones but to be expected and I think that Trend will continue in Q2 probably hopefully bottom out and then in Q3 will start to see them kind of get to kind of Positive quarter-on-quarter year-over-year Growth trends.
Jason:
[36:14] Yeah I mean it everything’s going to be topsy-turvy for a couple of years here but I take that is really encouraging right like there’s kind of two stories here there’s,
there’s Industries and retailers that did really poorly last year and so they’re they’re seeing big numbers because,
you know they’re They’re copying and very soft comps but Lowe’s and Home Depot which we’re about to talk about like actually did really well in the pandemic so for them to still be putting up,
you know objectively big numbers like 11% store comps and 36% e-commerce comps is a really helpful sign like you might have expected them to get a lot softer if,
if their demand was exclusively tied to pandemic Behavior so.
So that was an impressive earnings for lows and then the only bad news for Lowe’s is that Home Depot looks to have done even better,
um so their comps were up an amazing 29 percent.
And I’m I didn’t pull the data but like I think Lowe’s perform similarly to Home Depot in Q2 of last year so I don’t think this is a day against a different base I think Home Depot just,
had a better quarter than lows which is super impressive and then sadly I can’t tell you what their e-commerce growth is.
[37:36] Home Depot ordinarily does disclose their e-commerce growth but they usually disclose it not in their their earnings filings which is kind of a gap thing,
but in their investor presentation when they’re talking about their earnings and for some bizarre reason this year or this quarter,
Home Depot reported their earnings yesterday but their investor presentation is until tomorrow so we’ll probably find out tomorrow what their their e-commerce growth was but.
To put it in perspective it was you know slightly softer than lows but it’s a bigger,
base so they were a hundred percent in Q2 of last year and then up 80% in Q3 and then up 83 percent in Q4 so it’s,
it’s going to be really interesting to see if they can match rose with that kind of 35 to 40 percent growth and in q1 that’s that’s going to reflect really well for them.
Scot:
[38:29] Freckled extra walking us through that so it was really interesting to see this data as compared to the US Department of Commerce data and for we sign off it wouldn’t be a Jason Scott show without.
Jason:
[38:42] Amazon news your margin is there opportunity.
Scot:
[38:57] Yes I thought I would sneak a little quick Amazon news in here a couple things none of these are interrelated other than the Amazon connection.
So some of the logistics folks I saw kind of you know chalant Lee said hey look Amazon are which is their their network of planes that deliver Freight back and forth that the kind of competes with FedEx and UPS to some degree,
they added Pittsburgh and Kansas City as destination airports so you know they’re building out this networks they started at,
CV G which is kind of the the main airport that like near Louisville that a lot of a lot of people use here,
I’m Cincinnati Louisville and that kind of was the Hub now they’ve expanded from one airport Hub two to three and I think this is like five and six that they’ve added and there’s been a lot of reports that we haven’t had time for on the show where they’re buying more and more planes,
so this Amazon Logistics infrastructure just keeps getting bigger and bigger,
I’ve stopped I used to track the number of fulfillment centers I’ve stopped doing that there’s other people that have full-time folks that track that now but it’s just insanely massive and and even hard to keep track of they’re so far ahead on that.
[40:11] One I thought of you when I saw was they did a little Pharmacy news where they were talking about how they’re going to bring price transparency to the pharmacy.
There’s all these sheep I know how these work there and I do but there’s all these discount cards that are out there and all these different you know and then of course copay and not copay,
so they announced that they’re going to have a pretty simple place we can go and enter all your information and it’ll kind of give you total price transparency but also kind of share where the best where and how to get the best prices.
Did you feel like that was a game-changer or is that just kind of a yawn.
Jason:
[40:47] I’m not sure I would call it either the.
To me I felt like Amazon putting their own user experience on an acquisition that they made last year that we talked a little bit about on the show so they had one of these like Pharmacy,
discount plans for non prescription meds and I want to say it was I get these confused sometimes but it was.
It was a good RX or RX saver maybe so they acquired one of these discount plans and and so I think the announcement was them kind of.
You know taking the friction out of that and making that a more robust offering and and kind of rebranding it as Amazon.
So that’s it’s a step forward but I’m not sure I would call it a game changer changer.
Scot:
[41:38] Okay one small step for pharmacy transparency one giant leap for saving money
the other one that’s really interesting and this is kind of in the rumor phase but
you know I think probably saw that there was a big transaction in the movie space and as part of that it kind of shook loose mg M so the antitrust folks there’s two companies that merged they
I think MGM kind of had to be a part of that and there’s a lot of talks that Amazon’s looking at buying MGM and they have a massive Library,
I think on the new movie side they’re not super exciting they’re not one of the top top folks for new movies and new content but I think their library is pretty interesting and you can imagine Amazon buying that and then locking it down for only Prime subscriber so that could be a really interesting move,
and then there’s Jeff Goldberg Greenberg your Goldberg Greenberg Jeff Green,
Jeffrey burglars a Jeff guy that I’ve met before he’s kind of their headquarter Dev guy he recently resigned and now they’re saying he may come back to run this so that would be kind of an interesting thing.
Did you see any Amazon news that was interesting too.
Jason:
[42:47] Yeah yeah I’ll add one to your list and I feel like this is in direct response to me being a little annoyed by some of Amazon’s naming and I think they got the message and fixed it for me which I’m very appreciative of,
but as listeners will know Amazon has a lot of grocery store concept so they you know have this chain of grocery stores that they call Amazon Fresh.
Um
The na of course have these convenience stores with just walk out technology called Amazon go well astute followers of Amazon will know that there’s a couple of grocery stores in Seattle that were,
branded Amazon go grocery.
[43:28] Which felt like a weird outlier like you know originally the go concept was supposed to be a grocery store as reported by Brad Stone,
and they had trouble making that work so they downsized it to a convenience store and then they later launched Amazon fresh as their grocery.
And there are a couple of these like pilot stores that were called Amazon GO Grocery and so they’ve they’ve closed one in Seattle and they’ve rebranded the other one to from Amazon go grocery to Amazon Fresh so there,
cleaning up the names a little bit.
And it is interesting because I want to say the Amazon go stores are branded Amazon Fresh in UK as well so there still is some naming confusion but seems like there.
But it’s got I feel like that’s a overwhelming amount of news to cram into one show so we are going to wrap it there as Scott reminded us all at the beginning of the show if you enjoyed this episode or if you learn something from it we sure would appreciate it if you jump on iTunes and give us that
five star review as always if you have any questions or comments feel free to hit us up on the Twitter or Facebook.
Scot:
[44:46] Thanks everyone for joining and we appreciate those five star reviews.
Jason:
[44:51] And until next time Happy Commercing!
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