NEW YORK — The arrival of the Neiman Marcus Christmas Book — with a $7,000 doghouse and a $1.8 million charter to space — signals the Christmas selling season is kicking into gear.
For those with fewer dollars in their pockets, there is an array of items mass merchants are putting together to court shoppers to their stores this yule.
On their side is the fact that their stores are convenient and inexpensive. Even though gasoline prices have leveled from the highs of summer, shoppers are still concerned about energy costs. Drugstores, in particular, are banking on their convenient locations to make them a shopper stop for holiday items.
Mass market retailers told WWD that their strategy in beauty this year will be to pare back on assortments and try to elicit clean sell-throughs. “My goal is to make it easier for the stores to execute holiday. I won’t be getting as much secondary space as last year so it may be hard to make my numbers, but I am hoping for a cleaner sell-through,” said one merchant.
The strategy of stripping down selections is being led by both retailers and manufacturers with a goal of making it easier for consumers to shop beauty departments, while making the area more productive. The current theory is that many drug, food and discount stores are too cluttered with merchandise. Shoppers get frustrated and leave. By editing the assortments, retailers hope to improve the mass market shopping experience.
Most chains are estimating about a 4 percent increase in holiday beauty sales over last year. The National Retail Federation predicts sales of all holiday items will jump 5 percent to $457 billion during November and December. Last year, the group said sales rose 6.1 percent.
A poll of several leading drugstores and discount chains found that most plan to put merchandise out a little earlier than last year, especially since NRF finds that 6 percent of Americans try to do some holiday shopping before stores get crowded. However, several retailers said Halloween merchandise has been slower than expected. Halloween is often a bellwether for holiday sales.
The beauty items retailers are banking on include color cosmetics sets, manicure sets, beauty novelties and, of course, fragrance. Buyers said fragrances are still trending down, although designer scents — especially celebrity-endorsed ones — are doing well. This year, retailers will have several of the leading prestige items that only were offered in department stores last year, such as Baby Phat and JLo Live. Of course there is also the pipeline of diverted goods, which will ensure that some stores have brand-new prestige scents for Christmas.
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The leading beauty firms have color collections planned around partygoing with lots of shimmer and glimmer, such as a Holidazzle Shimmering Body Powder Set from Wet ‘n’ Wild priced at only $5.99. Another chain plans on offering an imported set of makeup for less than $10. Indeed, mass marketers said their mantra this year will be value and ease of shopping.
As in the past few years, beauty will have stepped up competition from other categories. There already has been a run on the newest Tickle Me Elmo TMX.
Wal-Mart has a controversial wish list Christmas site for children. Wally, an animated character, encourages kids to write up a list and e-mail it to parents. Some opponents think the campaign puts too much pressure on financially strapped parents to buy toys.
Leading chains also said they will once again step up efforts behind gift cards. CVS, Rite Aid, ShopRite and Walgreens are among those that will push not only their own cards but also kiosks with Visa, American Express, Blockbuster, Nordstrom and other gift cards. This is the ultimate in the blurring of channels — buying a gift card for Nordstrom while shopping at ShopRite.
“Gift cards will be hot this holiday largely due to the fact that they appeal to consumers’ increasing need for self-expression and convenience,” said Patrician S. Pao, a New York-based retail specialty turnaround executive and chief executive officer of Pao Principle. “Gift cards enable the giver to give the recipient exactly what they want, when they want it.”
Gift cards also compete with beauty, but if merchants play their cards right, the beauty department can benefit when the cards are cashed in.