The recent years have been tough on Macy’s Inc.
The retail giant is in the process of shuttering more than 100 doors, is up against mounting digital pressures and has seen dimming sales — but it’s not because shoppers have stopped spending altogether, according to a study conducted by Coresight Research.
The analysis firm, which surveyed more than 400 clothing and footwear consumers across the country, found that about 26 percent of shoppers are spending less of their budget at the department store chain now than they did three years ago. Instead, they’re taking their dollars to Amazon, T.J. Maxx/Marshalls, Target, Kohl’s and Walmart.
“It’s likely unsurprising to readers that Amazon has been the overall biggest gainer when consumers have redirected some or all of their apparel spending away from Macy’s,” founder and CEO Deborah Weinswig wrote in the report. “Yet Amazon is far from dominant: Much less than half of those surveyed who spend less of their apparel budget at Macy’s than they used to said that they had switched that spending to Amazon.”
The company saw a 410 basis-point decline in its sector share, with annual revenues declining by $3 billion from 2012 to 2017, as consumers switch their spending to off-price retailers and mass merchandisers, according to the report. Shoppers have also migrated away from regional malls and toward stores located in open-air shopping centers. (Old Navy was the only specialty store in the survey that captured a significant share of switched apparel spending.)
Watch on FN
“The preponderance of value retailers … reflects an apparent downgrading of apparel as a spending priority among shoppers,” Weinswig added. “We think this deprioritization of apparel partly explains why so many consumers have switched away from shopping at mid-market department stores.”
Want more?
Bad News For Retail: Consumers Aren’t Going to Buy Clothes & Shoes With Their Tax Savings
6 Major Department Stores Have Already Announced Store Closings in 2018 — & It’s Only Been a Month
