If there are any doubts that shoppers are motivated by price, Black Friday results settled that one.
Even early-bird Black Friday shoppers like Amanda Wedepohl of Flower Mound couldn't keep Target from reporting a 1.5 percent decline in same-store sales for November. " height="116" width="175">But weak sales the rest of the month left major U.S. chain stores with largely disappointing November sales and much ground to make up in the critical December holiday shopping season.
The tally of mostly department stores and specialty apparel chains reversed two months of momentum and fueled fears that consumers have permanently changed their shopping behavior.
"Consumers have been hiding under their beds since they've been taken to the woodshed and given a sound beating. That makes for a different relationship with their wallets," said Paco Underhill, author and founder of Envirosell, a behavioral market research and consulting company.
Lackluster results for retailers ultimately could end up meaning good news for shoppers. Experts say expect more discounts this week and every day leading up to Christmas.
"We're seeing the shift in consumer behavior. The consumer waited until Black Friday, when the retailers signaled them with very good promotions," said Laura Gurski, partner in the retail practice at management consultants A.T. Kearney. "Now the promotions will continue in order to keep sales alive through Christmas."
Major U.S. chain stores reported a 0.3 percent decline in November, "marking a disappointing reversal in the pace of sales after two consecutive monthly gains," according to the International Council of Shopping Centers. Analysts were expecting November sales to rise more than 2 percent.
Absent from the results are Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Toys R Us – chains that report only quarterly sales but had some of the longest lines over the Thanksgiving weekend, when disciplined shoppers with lists in hand cherry-picked deals on HDTVs, toys and electronics – then went home.
Consumers are asking questions "and thinking harder about the answers," said Leonard L. Berry, a marketing professor at Texas A&M University and author of several books on customer service. "Consumers are asking themselves: 'Do I really need this product? Do I really need to buy this many presents? Do I really need a new coat?' I'm not as confident as some that this is temporary behavior."
Consumers are also making the shift to more online shopping, Gurski said. Shoppers are learning to wait for online specials with promotions on Cyber Monday – the Monday after Thanksgiving.
More retailers pushed online specials this year, resulting in sales increasing 5 percent from last year's Cyber Monday. Online sales reached $887 million, matching the heaviest online spending day on record, Dec. 9, 2008, according to comScore, a firm that measures digital commerce.
J.C. Penney Co. extended its online promotion an extra day after the volume of Cyber Monday shoppers slowed checkouts and some people couldn't complete their orders by midnight, said a spokeswoman for the Plano-based department store chain.
Dallas-based Neiman Marcus Inc. said its online and catalog sales rose 18.1 percent in November.
There's a lot of catching up to do in December as surveys show shoppers are behind in their gift buying, said Michael P. Niemira, chief economist and director of research for the shopping center group.
The shopping center group is expecting December sales to increase 2 percent to 3 percent from a year ago.
Despite the November weakness, the shopping center group reaffirmed its forecast for sales to rise 1 percent from last year in the combined November-December season. Some retailers do as much as 40 percent of their annual sales in those two months.
John Long, a retail strategist at consulting firm Kurt Salmon Associates, said retailers who learned last year's lessons have "honed prices" and planned promotions with such precision that he doesn't believe last year's 70 percent and 80 percent off signs will appear before Christmas.
"Those retailers have lowered their top line [revenue] expectations in order to have better profits than last year," Long said.
Price cuts are impressive and part of a whole customer service package, he said.
This week, J.C. Penney and Macy's removed fine-print restrictions on 15 percent off and $10 off coupons for the first time. "No exclusions" on apparel at Macy's and on Levi's and Kitchenaid Artisan stand mixers at Penney "removes some frustrations associated with using those coupons" for the consumer, Long said.
Kohl's Corp. surprised analysts with a 3.3 percent increase in November sales. J.C. Penney same-store sales fell 5.9 percent, and Dillard's Inc. posted an 11 percent decline. Target Corp. said same-store sales fell 1.5 percent, and Costco Wholesale Club posted a 6 percent increase.
Neiman Marcus posted a 7.5 percent decline in same-store sales and said it will be cutting 75 jobs in March and April after deciding to outsource information systems jobs.
The company has been cutting costs all year as even luxury shoppers pulled back during the recession.
Saks Inc.'s sales fell 26.1 percent after it didn't repeat aggressive promotions and clearance activities from last year. Nordstrom had another positive month with a 2.2 percent increase.
Thomson Reuters said 22 out of 30 retailers reporting monthly results Thursday missed analyst expectations. With the exception of American Eagle Outfitters, all teen-oriented retailers missed their forecasts, said Ken Perkins, analyst at Retail Metrics.
"The bottom line is that comp store sales were very disappointing," he said. "Facing the easiest monthly comparison this decade, retailers managed to eke out a very soft 0.7 increase" by Perkins' measure.
"The standard line" he heard from retailers was that even a stronger year-over-year Black Friday weekend was not enough to offset weak sales most of the month, he said.