Week in Review

February 4, 2023

Share This Newsletter

Week in Review | Feb. 04, 2023

Store Power! Dollar General recently opened its 19,000th store in the U.S. The retailer is planning 1,050 new stores this year.

FINANCE

Amazon (USA) reported Q4 sales increased 9% to $149.2 billion, while net income fell to $0.3 billion, from $14.3 billion a year ago. Sales from e-commerce fell 2% in the quarter, while revenue from physical stores continued to grow.

Full year net sales increased 9% to $514.0 billion.

Amazon posted a full year net loss of $2.7 billion, its first in 6 years.
The company expects Q1 2023 growth between 4% and 8%, compared with the first quarter 2022.

FASHION RETAIL

Why Retention is the New Customer Acquisition Strategy

Soaring customer acquisition costs, along with a more competitive market has made brands realize that it is cheaper to keep their existing customers rather than chase new ones.

That might sound fairly obvious, but real efforts to retain customers have been focused on ‘rewards’ programs. Little attention is given to finding out what those loyal customers value most about a brand – or what they might want more of. Nor has much real consideration gone into discovering why a one time customer doesn’t return.

Unlocking the answers to this can pay massive dividends for brands, not only in terms of retention, but also in discovering what their customers are looking for.

Knowing what people already buy from you want – and what would make it a ‘must buy’ could be a blueprint for creating the right products at the right time. Read more

PODCAST

How the Right Back Links Can 10X Your Website’s Traffic

Digital marketing is now something that every business needs to include – even if only in a minimal way

That’s left a lot of companies either wondering what to do – or wasting time and money doing the wrong thing.

One of the core tactics is building links on your website. They can significantly boost your ranking in search, add credibility to your website and help attract more visitors.

In this podcast Aaron Anderson, an SEO and Link Building expert talks about what companies are getting wrong – and how to create backlinks that get your business in front of customers.

You’ll Learn

How link building works and why it is critical for every website to have backlinks.
The best way to build those all-important backlinks – even for brand new websites.
Key mistakes companies make when outsourcing their link building.

🎧 Listen to the podcast

E-COMMERCE

JD.Com Inc., (China) is shutting down online sales in Indonesia and Thailand due to high competition in those regions from other platforms including Alibaba-owned Lazada.

Stripe (USA), the payment processing technology startup, is closing in on a $2.5 billion funding round that would value it at $55-60 billion, significantly lower than its $95 billion valuation in 2021.

RETAIL

JD Sports (UK) said it plans to open as many as 1,750 stores worldwide over the next 5 years, as it aims to become a “a global sports-fashion powerhouse,” per CEO Régis Schultz.

Kohl’s (USA) has eliminated 60 mainly marketing and merchandising positions.

Bed Bath & Beyond (USA) is closing 87 more stores

REI (USA) laid off 150 people, which is 8% of its corporate workforce.

MARKETS

A Mixed Scenario

Employment figures are at record highs, inflation fell for the sixth straight month in December, yet consumer confidence lags heading into 2023.

The Conference Board reported that its consumer confidence index slipped to a still-optimistic 107.1 in January, down from 109 in December.

US unemployment fell to 3.4% in January, a 53-year low, per Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

In the U.S., job insecurity rose among high-income workers in January as layoffs of professional, white-collar workers continue to make headlines. On the other hand, lower-income workers are feeling increasingly secure, per Morning Consult data.

Consumer expectations deteriorated to 77.8 in January from 83.4 in December, according to the Conference Board’s Expectation Index, a measure of consumers’ six-month outlook for income, business and labor conditions. (a reading below 80 can be a signal of a coming recession)