Top 100 Shows Retail's Strength
By Steve Smith -- TWICE, 4/29/2002
In reviewing the many things that occurred in a calendar year, one feels you can't just look at charts and numbers and understand the entire story. By looking at statistics you'll get an outline of what went on, but you may miss the nuances.
Such is true in our issue this week, which features the TWICE CE Retail Registry. The report, as many of you know, ranks the performances of the top 100 consumer electronics retailers in the United States during calendar year 2001. With all that went on in the world last year, from a faltering economy followed by the devastating terrorist attacks in September to a war on terror in Afghanistan and around the world, the last thing some of us might want to do is review 2001.
But time marches on, and so does everyday life. It is difficult, but getting back to our old routine is what we owe ourselves, our nation and those who have sacrificed so much. It is in that spirit that TWICE presents this year's edition of the CE Retail Registry.
When you take a look at the Registry, one point has to hit you smack in the face. For all the talk of the recession and the almost complete stoppage of retail sales activity for at least a week or so after Sept. 11, sales reached $89.3 billion, a 6.9 percent gain from $83.5 billion the top 100 U.S. CE retailers had during 2000.
How can that be? I know some of you are probably saying, "Oh, your estimates must be off!" Or my favorite (usually from companies that don't supply us with numbers), "I compete against XYZ Chain and there's no way they did $#&* million in sales!"
And one other point: since I have been involved in doing these top 100 reports since the mid-1980s, the top CE retailers' share of the business goes up most of the time.
All that being said there are legitimate reasons why the 6.9 percent gain in sales for the top 100 is accurate. The first reason is two words: digital products. Consumers are now much more knowledgeable about consumer electronics and technology in general than ever before. The waves of digital products in all categories are wide, getting wider, and are very deep, as well as being profitable.
The second trend is home and hearth. (I can't stand the popular word "cocooning," but you get the idea.) To put it in simple terms, after Sept. 11, the travel industry's problems were a windfall to the CE industry. If you remember, even during the holiday season, when there were moans and groans about retail sales, the only category that shone above the rest was consumer electronics.
Current retail sales for the industry is steady and profitable, with more growth foreseen during the second half in a variety of CE categories. Consumers continue to gobble up the industry's products, which is a blessing for all concerned given the times we live in.
And one very important final note: Our thanks go to Paul Zorfass and his team at First Technology Inc. of Weston, Mass., and at TWICE, senior editor Alan Wolf, managing editor John Laposky, associate editors Tedra Meyer and Will Safer, and designer Desiree Nunez for putting together this year's TWICE CE Retail Registry.
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