NEW YORK — Major retailers told investors Friday that post-Christmas sales were “mixed,” industry shorthand that has historically translated to “fine,” “concerning,” “we are closing 400 doors in March,” and, in one 2008 case, “please acquire us for a dollar.”
Macy’s reported a 0.4% comp decline it attributed to weather, the calendar shift, and “consumer behavior.” Kohl’s posted a 6% drop and blamed the same three things in a different order. Best Buy, somehow up 1.1%, credited an air fryer.
“When a retailer says ‘mixed,’ what they mean is that the categories they wanted to sell didn’t sell, and the categories no one was tracking did,” said Marcus Veit, a consumer-discretionary analyst at Bowline Research who has spent two decades writing notes that contain the phrase ‘underlying trends remain healthy.’ “It’s a word designed to do nothing in particular, which is what makes it useful.”
The pullback was concentrated in “discretionary spending,” a category that retail analysts define as everything in the store, and that households define as the stuff their spouse bought.
Inside a Bridgewater, New Jersey mall on Friday morning, a Kohl’s district manager named Dana ate half a Cinnabon in the food court while explaining over speakerphone to a regional VP that the 60%-off rack was now 75% off, and that the 75%-off rack had been wheeled out by the dumpster because there wasn’t room for it inside the store. The VP told her to call it post-holiday momentum.
At a Best Buy in Paramus, the returns line stretched past the Geek Squad counter and into a corner where a lone demo OLED played the same six-second loop of an aurora borealis. A man in the line, holding a sealed Ninja Creami still in its retail bag, declined to comment except to say that his daughter had specifically asked for cash. Behind him, a woman returned a $48 throw pillow at 9:14 a.m. and was photographed at the Target across the parking lot at 9:31 buying the same throw pillow at $19, a maneuver economists call “rational” and that her husband called “what is wrong with you.”
The National Retail Federation, which in October projected holiday growth of 3.5% to 4.5%, on Friday revised the projection to 3.5% to 4.5%, noting the range was wide enough to accommodate any outcome short of a meteor strike. A footnote clarified that gift card redemptions, BNPL chargebacks, and returns made in cash but refunded to a Visa would each be counted in the quarter most flattering to the retailer.
Shares of most major chains closed roughly flat on the day, which analysts described as mixed.