Loss Prevention Research Council Weekly Series - Episode 156 - USA Retail Performance and World Most Valuable Brands
With Dr. Read Hayes, Tony D'Onofrio, and Tom Meehan
First I want to congratulate this podcast team on being named a top 100 podcast by Thinkers360 for the first half of 2023. Read, Tom, and our producers Diego, amazing run at over 155 episodes and our work is being recognized as I am seeing thousands of impressions on LinkedIn when I post our weekly work. Nice job everyone. Let’s keep on rolling.
On a personal note, I am having a very good week as the Retail Technology Innovation Hub just named me as a top 100 retail technology influencer for 2023. Amazing week so far so let us keep it rolling.
Retail sales rose more than expected in June as consumers remain resilient despite inflation
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/15/retail-sales-june-2022-.html
Switching topics as reported last week by CNBC, June USA Retail sales rose 1% in June, slightly better than the 0.9% estimate. The numbers are not adjusted for inflation, which rose 1.3% on a monthly basis, indicating that real sales still were slightly negative. Gasoline stations, online sales, and bars and restaurants were some of the biggest contributors.
When you strip it down, according to analysis published on Twitter by the IHL Group, the weakest sectors June Year to Date are Convenience and Gas at negative 12.5%, department stores at negative 1.1% and specialty hard goods at negative 0.6%.
When you factor inflation it got even worse for convenience stores which were down over 28%, department stores and specialty hard goods were down nearly 5% each.
With inflation factored in, only three sectors had positive growth with inflation included: Drug stores up 3.6%, restaurants up 4.4% and Online non-store retail which was up 3.9%.
Overall a challenging first half when inflation is factored in for the USA retail industry as the IHL group reports that sales for all groups after inflation were negative 3.1%. We have some work to do in the second half.
Top 100 Brands by Value in 2023
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/top-100-brand-value-2023/
Switching topics again, let me summarize the latest research from Brand Finance as reported by Visual Capitalist on the Top 100 most valuable brands in the world.
Brand Finance examined over 5,000 companies (and in cases of groups like Alphabet and Meta, their subsidiary brands) across 38 countries. Broadly speaking, a brand’s value represents the allocation of company earnings that are linked to the brand.
Amazon ranks number one globally with its brand valued at $299 billion. As a market leader in online retail, it has strong brand loyalty in its B2C segment which generates its largest share of revenue, and is a key player in cloud services for its B2B platforms.
Apple is in close second with a $298 billion brand. It’s important to note that both tech giants brands fell in value from last year, as supply chain disruptions, labor market constraints, and slower forecasted revenue impacted their brands.
Other big tech brands Google (#3) and Microsoft (#4) were next in the ranking. Korean conglomerate Samsung (#6) was the highest-ranking firm based outside of America.
Overall, the top tech brands were worth a combined $891 billion largely thanks to the outsized influence of Apple, Microsoft, and Samsung and technology is the number one category with the highest value brands.
Interesting that retail is number 2 category with a brand value of $690 billion. Media is the number 3 category at just over $645 billion.
The top 5 fastest rising brands in 2023 were BYD, ConocoPhillips, Maersk, LinkedIn, and Christian Dior.
The top economies in the world (1980 – 2075)
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/top-economies-in-the-world-1980-2075/
Also interesting this week is the analysis of the top economies in the world in 2022 and how they will change through the year 2075.
In 2022, the top three lagest economies in the world in the world are number 1 USA, number 2 China, and number 3 Japan.
In the year 2050, the number 1 economy in the world will be China, number 2 will be USA, and number 3 will be India.
In the year 2075, the number 1 economy is expected to be China, followed by India, and USA drops to third place.
The data published by Visual Capitalist is from a recent report from Goldman Sachs on the projected balance of global economic power.
Twitter rival Threads loses 75% traffic 15 days after launch
https://www.livemint.com/technology/tech-news/twitter-rival-threads-loses-75-percent-traffic-15-days-after-launch-heres-why-11690086455801.html
Let me end this week with news from Meta and their new application Threads. Recall than in a previous podcast I reported that Threads reached 1 million users in just one hour and 100 million in 5 days. This compares with ChatGPT reaching 1 million in 5 days and 100 million in 2 months.
Threads which is the competitor to Twitter was the fastest online services application, but the good news did not last.
15 days after its launch traffic on Threads dropped by 75% according to livemint.com.
One of the main reasons for the Threads app losing traction with users is the lack of clarity about what the app is supposed to be. At launch, it looked like Instagram was trying to attract disgruntled Twitter users to a new platform. However, it seems that Threads and Twitter are aimed at very different audiences.
Over the years, Twitter has been known as a forum for news and politics, where popular personalities such as journalists, celebrities, athletes and politicians go to voice their 'political' and sometimes controversial opinions. Instagram and other Meta have been known to shy away from politics and focus on engaging with images and videos.
Instagram and Threads boss Adam Mosseri has made it clear that the latest social media entrant doesn't want to dabble in politics or hard news. Threads' reluctance to embrace news and political content raises questions about the audience Threads wants to serve.
But we will have to see where all this goes as Elon Musk just rebranded Twitter as just X which is says stands for everything. I actually did a poll two weeks ago on LinkedIn asking who was going to win the real time information feed wars? 76% of those who voted said Twitter. 24% said Threads. Looks like that audiene was right.
This week on a new episode of CrimeScience, our hosts discuss industry wide initiatives that the LPRC is hosting and participating in to enhance collaboration across retailers and with law enforcement, rising retail sales in June especially in restaurants and gasoline, with the weakest sectors being in C-stores and department stores, and strongest being in online sales.
