Kurt Barnard Stores Quotations

With Wal-Mart it's still a wait-and watch situation, but Target's news is a little worse. The problem with Target is that its department stores are underperforming.

The only way to grow in the retail business is to add yet another 100 stores, another 600 stores. Then someone else will see that you are successful. And that other fellow will do the same. And for a while it is fine, until suddenly there are more stores than the community needs.

One of the reasons why stores did not do better than they did is because there were not enough new designs, not enough new fashions.

Based on what we've heard and seen so far, the fashion apparel stores and department stores are going to be hit with lower profits.

I think ultimately they will do better than they have done in some years, ... There's no question the much more attractive stores will pay off in terms of improvement, but will they be able to come through with big earnings? The jury's still out.

I still say don't get your hopes up for the holidays. Yes, the specialty retailers did exceedingly well. Yes, the department stores look like they finally are getting their act together and yes, the discounters again came through with flying colors.

I still say don't get your hopes up for the holidays, ... Yes, the specialty retailers did exceedingly well. Yes, the department stores look like they finally are getting their act together and yes, the discounters again came through with flying colors.

While Saks is trying to make itself even more exclusive and pricing its goods even higher, the Neiman Marcus stores are going in the other direction and trying to attract a larger group of consumers. Today's development shows that competition in the luxury space is being ratcheted up a notch.

There has been, and continues to be, a strong shift of consumer spending away from traditional department stores and specialty stores over to discount stores.

Upscale stores have done very well because their customers have been fortunate to amass a bit of wealth, so they're not worried about their jobs. But people who live paycheck to paycheck have to be careful, and they look at the price tag before looking at the product.

There is spotty evidence that in some stores inventories are running low, but considering that the action that's in the stores is not particularly hot these days, that (low inventories) may not be the worst possible fate. In many cases a lot of stores reduced the orders they placed, and in some cases, canceled orders, which is exactly what's happening.

What J.C. Penney needs to do is to make the stores they do have palatable, pleasant to shop, and all of this needs to be done with an eye toward recapturing the market they've lost,

What we are seeing is that consumers' cautious spending is now stretching to the low-priced discount stores as well as to the other stores. ...Today, saving money is chic. Bargain hunting is fashionable.

Discount stores are doing very well, and home-oriented retailers are doing very well. But most of the others are dragging their heels.

Despite the fact that it's a clearance month, we can still see strong trends. People stayed away from department stores and they broke down the doors at discount stores.

Are consumers buying more? I don't know. I think what Wal-Mart said about people spending less of the rebate money this year in stores is significant. It shows people prefer to save any extra money than spend it.

As consumers become more comfortable with buying from the computer, ... and this new generation that has grown up with the computer comes of age, what we will see is huge dollar amounts of retail sales being transacted on the Web and we will see a lot of stores become increasingly Web stores.

A terrible problem for retailers is that most stores are evoking yawns from consumers, instead of excitement. Retailers just can't keep making the mistake of taking customers for granted by selling ho-hum kind of merchandise. Consumers are looking for unusual and exciting products and they're not finding them.

It was disappointing. A lot of stores told us that when they opened at 7 or 8 in the morning with special deals good for two hours, crowds were beginning to mass. But at the stroke of 9, when those sales were supposed to end, the crowds disappeared like a snowflake in the palm of your hand.

Consumer spending is avoiding the mall-based, high-priced stores and is now drifting rapidly to the discount and low-priced segment.

The blizzard was a serious setback for retailers, especially since the Presidents Day weekend is a major day for sales. Most of the malls and independent stores were shut in the Northeast.

The bigger it gets, the smaller the percentage growth will be. Let's say that when you add 10 new stores to 100 stores, you grow the business 10 percent. When you add 10 stores to 3,000 stores, the growth isn't obvious.

Their sales are terrible and their efforts to come up with newness that appeals to consumers and brings them back into the stores are failing. There's absolutely no indication that they have found a road back to health, and while they have very little debt, they do have too many stores. With that kind of a background, it's not difficult to envision a bankruptcy in the foreseeable future.

If you didn't do well as a retailer in January, you stand out like a sore thumb. It was really a party for retailers, although traditional department stores didn't sit at the party table.

High-end stores depend on continued spending from clients that over the past four years have amassed considerable wealth. Sales at upscale stores like Saks and Neiman Marcus are also going strong because the stock market has been very customer friendly to this group.

By shuttering the Marshall Field's catalogs, Target is saying something about its department stores business -- business isn't what it used to be, ... Part of the reason is that department stores overall are doing badly.