Richard Hastings Quotes (56 Quotes)

Weaker spending on seasonal goods has been building up for four months now. The two factors hurting consumers particularly at the low- and middle-income levels are that wages have not grown and gasoline prices could go even higher.

There are five business days until the comparable-store sales figures come out. Stores will be assessing things, and we could see some warnings, if they haven't done well.

New seasonal fashions brought out many apparel shoppers beating our sales expectations for some specialty apparel retailers, ... Overall, the industry is getting better at fixing short-term merchandising missteps, and October's cooler weather certainly brought out favorable reaction from many shoppers.

I expect this number to rise toward the end of the year. At the same time jobs and wages won't rise fast enough to offer relief to already overstretched consumers. This could hurt retail spending in the second-half.

Consumers have a way of pulling it together for the holidays. We could see weakness in apparel and footwear sales but electronics, entertainment products and gift cards could do very well in the fourth quarter.

Our recent visits to some stores indicate better controls over displays, clutter, and shelf appearance, necessary steps to stabilize store aesthetics in support of their apparel initiatives.

They're paying attention to their problems. They are aware that when it comes to store-level execution there are problems and they're paying attention to it.

This holiday season Wal-Mart hasn't been able to differentiate itself from the competition or really take advantage of the early wave of promotional activity.

Will the anticipation of more expensive bills hurt holiday sales I don't think so. I think consumer spending will see more of a marginal change rather than a substantial change, primarily at the lower-income level.

Retailers have very big orders from vendors ready for delivery right before and right after Christmas. They want to look really, really good. That's when they come out with the richest displays of winter merchandise, and it culminates with Valentine's Day.

We believe Lewis is the better person to lead a customer-centric business,

Being a public company ain't fun. Retailers are fleeing for the private universe, because they speak a different language than Wall Street analysts. There's a dynamic volatility that retailers are comfortable with, and that really tests their patience when they deal with the urge toward smoothness and predictability that analysts want. There are a lot more people in private investment banking who understand your language.

Wet Seal is a turnaround situation that has been helped by strong industry vendor credit support and solid communications with their vendors.

Electronics is certainly carving a big chunk of money out of the pockets of shoppers, ... Back-to-school is increasingly about how cool is your phone, or how new and cool is your notebook -- that 1,350 notebook -- and students are judging each other by their gizmos at least as much as by their clothing.

The consumer is jittery. Rising debt levels, inflation and higher gasoline prices are all real threats and a drag on spending.

All that a week ago was neatly put out there. Today Mother Nature took all of it.

Management has been defending the brand. If we look at the last six years, it's become clear that they have made no progress.

We're at an extremely dangerous situation where home heating bills could be shockingly high this winter, ... This is very bad news especially in the northeast part of the country, where the population represents a pretty big chunk of national retail sales.

This remains one of the most interesting major retailing case studies in the past 20 years.

Sears did a superb job on seasonal holiday promotions in circulars and TV ads and enjoyed a strong November. Sears comparable sales gains compares favorably to last year when November 2003 same-store sales were down 3.6 percent,

Management is concerned about return on invested capital and return on shareholder equity and that's the focus. Everything else takes a backseat to that.

It's just a number. Vendors are worried about getting purchase orders, and getting paid. That's a real concern. But investors are worried about getting on the momentum express before it leaves the station.

But higher costs were enough to hit operating income in the quarter, which grew only 7 percent, compared to a 7.4 growth rate for the comparable nine months. Despite these issues, the quarter held up very well and the holiday quarter should hold up nicely,

The capital markets are so liquid, despite some of the increase in borrowing costs, that they create wonderful choices for consumer companies like Tommy Hilfiger and J. Crew to go private, ... break themselves into pieces, gobble someone else's pieces or just try to raise money to get bigger.

We had a strong back-to-school season and discretionary spending on low-priced items has trended higher. These are good indications for Halloween, which typically sets the tone for the rest of the holiday shopping season.

If trade relations between the United States and China begin to deteriorate, and the dollar declines in a disorderly manner, then a minor thing such as raw cotton prices could become very important,

For a company doing about 1920 billion in sales, this is not a big float.

Mass merchandising and discount retailing is moving in a big way toward private labels and exclusive designer brands, ... That Wal-Mart is rumored to be contemplating something like this is logical, given the trend in the industry.

Wal-Mart's much slower rate of sales growth in November clearly shows this is a matured global business, ... As supermarket goods continue to increase as a percentage of sales -- and this includes consumables and perishables sold in big volume at Sam's Club -- we will expect to see a persistently slower rate of top line growth.

The holiday is clearly growing in importance for the industry. Halloween is fun, enjoyable and doesn't require a big investment to celebrate. The primary focus is the child and families typically do all they can to make sure the children have fun.

This is a favorable development for Saks and a big improvement to its balance sheet, which shows a lot of debt leverage,

We're already seeing heavy markdowns particularly in apparel,

The assortments weren't there when cold weather snapped back, and shoppers were curious about something other than a bikini to match their mittens.

Retailers know that many people will wait until after Christmas for the big purchases. So they don't want to go too far into the holidays with excess inventory that they eventually will heavily discount.

With Christmas Eve falling on a Friday, sales have the potential of being very intense.

On shopping networks, people model the products, demonstrate how it works and actually make it fun for viewers to associate with what's being shown.

To be concerned about the strength of consumer spending is wise. Wal-Mart as a barometer of consumer spending is significant. Consumer spending will start to moderate off of its hot pace in the second-half of the year.

The outlook for them this year is the best it's been in about the last three years.

One area of trouble in consumer spending is households and individuals with weakening credit profiles. So far it's not yet a majority of households but the number of consumers in credit distress is on the increase. That's something to keep an eye on,

Unlike Europe, Asian markets are more receptive to big-box formats, ... The model of relationships between households, labor, production, the market and resources are more easy to replicate there.

China could choose to retaliate against yesterday's announcement by hiking up prices on a key export to the U.S. or suspending purchase of certain commodities from the U.S,

Their third-quarter profit was supported by a really solid quarter at Sam's Club. This shows again why Sam's matters so much to Wal-Mart's consolidated profitability, ... Smoother performance at Sam's has been a big plus recently, and it has to hold up in order to offset the rising influence of supermarket margins from the other division.

I think it's kind of funny they're changing roles, but I'm also getting the impression that, over the past two years, there seems to be a trend to moving top management around so they get more well-rounded experience. I think that's a good move and maybe a part of the company's succession plan.

Gift cards are like proprietary currency issued by a retailer. The intention is to get a potentially new consumer to come in and trade in that currency and try new merchandise. We're seeing retailers across the spectrum doing as much as possible to promote them.

This is about putting your career on the line. They need to go in there and do something really dramatic to retool the business.

The company is showing stable business improvement and there's a higher probability the stock will shoot higher in the near-term.

The additional cash on the balance sheet from the asset sales will put Kmart in a position to further reduce debt and possibly buyback more shares in a move that could boost share prices further, ... At the same time, the big cash position will enable management to look at an attractive range of choices, including the possibility at some point in the future of a major acquisition.

July sales were weaker than expected. Summer can be a volatile season for retailers but I am a little surprised by the weakness in apparel. I'll be keeping an eye on discretionary spending going forward.

Consumers are benefiting from a combination of tax stimulus, new products, good apparel fashions and compelling prices.

If spending on durable goods slows down, it could also weaken sales of consumer electronics, especially on big ticket items that have a higher profit margin but are interest rate sensitive.