May 11, 2007
The Sky Is Falling! The Sky Is Falling!!
Can't you just hear that little chicken runnin' all over hell screamin' that? I can. Especially when I read headline leads like this:
Now let me tell you a little something about consumer products, if I may. We measure everything based on last year. And if possible we try to measure apples to apples - or in other words, same store sales. If a store has been open for a full 12 months (at least) it's kind of obvious that you can go back and look at how things were then and compare them to now.
Being an analyst, I've done more than my fair share of sales trends. I look at over all sales in that store, one year to the next. Than I look at CATEGORY sales in that store. For instance with Tropicana. How did juice measure up? Then break it down even more. How did juice with pulp do? Without? You see what I'm sayin'......
Anyway - there's a couple of factors that have to be added in, and when ever trends are announced by the MSM I know damned well, they ain't looking.
If I had a store that dropped in sales the first thing I did was look to see if they had a competitor open near by. If it's Wal-Mart, is there a new Target within 15 miles? How about road construction? Is it still easy access? How about NEW construction? Did they open another Wal-Mart within 60 miles? (They used to say a person will travel up to 60 miles to go to a supercenter. The goal was to try and keep them spaced out so that each store stood on it's own.) Look at what is going on in the area.
Same thing should happen if sales are up. Don't just sit back and giggle cause numbers look good. Figure out WHY.
So when I see the headline I saw today, I'm not panicked. In fact I'm kind of pissed. Consumer's see that and think "Crap. Recession!" and stop shopping. Folks - I'm in consumer product sales. You stop shopping? I stop eating. And I've gotten rather fond of eating, let me tell you.
Anyway - I'm just trying to say, numbers rise and numbers fall. This isn't usually a strong month for certain items. It's the beginning of summer, school will be out. People are going on vacation. Yes, it's alarming to see that most everywhere the numbers dipped compared to last year, but what was going on last year that the numbers were so high?
Add the landscape of retail is changing. More and more people are shopping on-line. Is that figured in?
See, I'd like to see the actual report. And I will. It'll be on line and, being the geek that I am, I'll print it out and look it over. I want to see WHERE the numbers came from. What exceptions they looked at. Did they calculate ALL sales? I got me some questions.
Arrgghhh! I know we bitch and bitch about the MSM screaming the bad news from the roof tops and the good news gets buried. And on this blog, I also realize I'm preaching to the choir. But really.....
And my biggest fear is by the time this is no longer a "lead story" people will be firmly entrenched in the negative and it will all become a self fulfilling prophesy.
Posted by Tammi at May 11, 2007 07:43 AM | TrackBackAs a consumer, I never give credence to those stories. If I need/want something, I buy it. But then, maybe I'm old enough to know that the sky isn't going to fall... even through recessions. ;)
I don't understand Wal-Mart. I have 5 huge Wal-Marts within a 5 mile radius of our house. Now, I know there are a LOT of people down here in Margaritaville, but isn't that a little redundant?
Oh, and I don't shop at any of them... maybe once a year, because they're open 24/7. Please don't hate me because I do Wally World! :D