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Portfolio Categories Slowing Trends

Ramping Promotional Campaigns in Home Goods Indicate Slowdown Accelerating

Posted at 27 Apr 2023 , blog, Greg Robin Random Walk, Negative Inflections

BIG, FND, HD, LOW, LOVE, LZB, OSTK, RH,  W, WSM

 Matt Gordon
Greg Robin

 APRIL 20, 2023
Random Walk  Email intelligence suggests management is responding to fading organic demand in home furnishings and home improvement with more aggressive pushed offers to their leads lists this spring



Home and home furnishing related names have been more aggressive in sending promotions to leads this April compared to last, with Wayfair (W) and Pottery Barn(WSM) as standouts on our slowing list. Each had more faster ramps year-over-year promotion growth in significant discounts.

Home improvement retailers Home Depot (HD) and Lowe’s (LOW) are dealing with declining demand in part by sending new and more frequent email promotions to leads. We also recently captured new spring holiday language unseen in prior years.




In terms of fastest growers of total email volumes Floor & Decor (FND) stands out.  Total promotional volume is a good way to measure concerns from brands that do not discount such as Restoration Hardware(RH).  As can be seen above, RH is sending more communications to leads, despite no significant discounts outside of the outlet.

Our updated promotional ensembles provide the most robust, quantitative and rigorous views of how brands are communicating with leads.


2022 Recap, Looking Ahead to 2023

Posted at 15 Jan 2023 , blog, Greg Robin Random Walk

2022 RECAP & LOOKING AHEAD
 

  • 2022 Trends: Chasing Precision with ‘Science’
  • Record IPOs Email Promotions, Unsustainable Growth
  • Investing to Improve our Processes
  • Inflections: Select Winners and Losers
  • Goals for 2023
For many of our inflections Street Consensus was inaccurate by more than 40%.

DOWNLOAD OUR FULL LETTER

Holiday Promotional Outliers

Posted at 01 Dec 2022 , Greg Robin Random Walk, Negative Inflections, Positive Inflection

Our promotional ensemble identified the biggest outliers of the period from several weeks before Black Friday through Cyber Week for our investor partners.

Standouts with previously unseen promotions, largest risers in discount campaigns, or those with robust organic demand that were able to reduce email volumes include:

AEO, COUR, CROX, CURV, GME, HIBB, LOVE, PVH, NKE, RH, SCVL, SONO, TPX, TSCO, URBN, VFC

Our email intelligence systems have been capturing tracking and classifying emails from leading brand for nearly 7 years providing the most robust, quantitative insight into email promotional activity. i

The quickest and cheapest method for management to respond to demand inflections is to adjust its cadence and intensity of email discounts.

AMERICAN EAGLE OUTFITTERS (AEO) Both total promotional email volume and significant discounts nearly 30% lower than a year ago.

GAMESTOP (GME) Meteoric rise in BF related promotional activity with “$50 off x box” and “up to 60% off video games”.

HELLO FRESH (HLFF) Total promotional email volumes up nearly 300% driven by “$180 off Thanksgiving” and “get up to 70% off” discounts.

LOVESAC (LOVE) Steeper than year ago and higher volume significant discounts driven by “35% off Bundles”.

NIKE (NKE) Sequential and YoY declines in steep and significant discounts

VF CORP (VFC) Both North Face and Vans saw sharp rises in all categories of email promotions. Total inbox volumes, significant discounts, steep discounts and storewide promotions all rose to record highs.

contact us for to see the entire Holiday Promotional Outlier List

Rising Discounts, Promotions Predict Reduced Guidance

Posted at 15 Jul 2022 , Negative Inflections, Positive Inflection

Within our universe of nearly 300 names, our email intelligence identified several brands relying on record setting promotions and discount to drive traffic both online and in stores. Compared with prior years, total promotional volume, total steep discounts, total significant discounts were all at least 100-200% higher than year ago levels.

Our systems alert investors to these situations which have often signaled dramatically reduced guidance.

BBBY, DASH ,GPRO

Weak Email Order Confirmations Signal Miss

Posted at 14 Jul 2022 , Negative Inflections, Positive Inflection

Tracking more than 1 million consumers, our ensemble has been successful at identifying severe slowdowns in demand for key goods and services.

(12) Our current list contains outliers that have shown dramatic deceleration in demand online.

Updated Slowing List

EMAIL INTELLIGENCE UNCOVERS RECORD NUMBER OF PROMOTIONAL OUTLIERS

Posted at 06 Jul 2022 , Greg Robin Random Walk

Random Walk Email Intelligence has never identified more unusual promotional activity than over the past 30 days.   In June alone our systems have captured nearly 100 never seen before campaigns as consumer preferences shift.

HOME FURNISHING PROMOTIONS ACCELERATE TO NEW HIGHS

BIG, LOVE, W, WSM

In home furnishings our data indicates COVID pulled forward, not just several quarters but year’s worth of demand.  Now, with the backyard, garage space and wallets maxed out, consumers are shifting away from creating the perfect Instagram worthy at-home backyard oasis.

Random Walk Email Intelligence indicates record growth the discount campaigns in Q2 from Pottery Barn.

DEMAND FOR CASUAL ‘AT HOME’ FOOTWEAR FADING?

CROX, FL, SCVL

During COVID, Americans gobbled up footwear for the outdoors or comfort around the house casual footwear retailers benefitted and throttled back promotions.  However, this summer with consumers more spartan due to gas prices and $20 hamburgers they don’t appear to need so many sandals.

Crocs and Crocs retailers such as Foot Locker and Shoe Carnival have been blasting an all-time high volume of Croc’s specific discounts.

GET OUTDOORS ON THE ROAD MEETS $6 GAS

CWH, WGO, YETI

Without COVID checks, a free pass from work, and with $6 gas it appears road trip RV, van and mega SUV trips could be stalling.  Our email intelligence has tracked growth in promotional volumes for outdoor camping accessory related businesses such as Camping World, Winnebago, and Yeti.

Into summer camping season Camping World has blasted out an all-time high volume of significant and steep discounts.

Our data visualizations allow quick identification of outliers within a specific sector.  Find out which brands are losing organic demand and responding with increased “push” discounting campaigns to their leads

Download the pdfhttps://ranwalk.com

Coinbase: Email Intelligence Detects Collapsing Customers, Orders

Posted at 11 May 2022 , Greg Robin Random Walk, Negative Inflections

> Email Intelligence successfully detected the collapse of one of the biggest FOMO driven manias in US history: “crypto trading”.  
 
> Random Walk ensemble alerted investor partners to sharp deceleration in orders, new account “welcome” confirmations, as well as a higher deletion rate for new product offerings.  
 
> Wall Street bankers and analysts, motivated to sell the management “narrative”, extrapolate unsustainable growth rates into the future, but RW data can help uncover inflections


In 2020 and into 2021 our data indicated strong, but likely transient growth in new “Welcome to Coinbase” email confirmations. This unsustainable growth was driven by a ‘Black Swan’ mosaic of factors: bored locked down Americans, unprecedented Uncle Sam stimulus checks, and social media FOMO pictures of teens in pajamas getting rich trading Crypto Kitties.

After lockdowns and free money ended in late 2021 our ensemble uncovered slowing in new customer confirmation emails, and we added COIN to our slowing list.

‘GENIUS’ SUPER BOWL QR AD GENERATES CLICKS NOT CUSTOMERS

Above: Super Bowl Ad fails to generate customers, but drove worthless clicks due to its nebulous nature

Several additional data driven trends revealed themselves earlier this year. The inability for a $14 million Super Bowl ad to attract new customers was apparent as our data detected no spike in new accounts.  While the media focused on worthless “clicks” our data showed a lack of actual new customers.  Management hubris led to equivocating marketing a crypto-trading platform with proven consumers products such as alcohol/beer, quick service restaurants, auto, apparel etc.

EMAILS PROMOTING SUBSCRIPTION, NFT PRODUCTS DELETED


In March, our email intelligence indicated very high delete rates for new products marketed with email promotions such as Coinbase One, and Coinbase NFTs. With gas at $6 a gallon and $25 hamburgers and rising rates, consumers had lost interest, as they prioritized getting to work and feeding their families over possessing digital unicorn.

BITCOIN SPIKES, TRADING VOLUMES DON’T

The lack of interest in trading “cryptos” despite a spike in bitcoin after Putin invaded Ukraine showed in our data and confirmed the slowing trend.

AS BROADER EQUITY MARKETS CORRECT, CUSTOMER GROWTH ENDS

Once the high growth equity tech bubble began to collapse and consumers saw their 529 plans, 401ks, and brokerage accounts decline, they quickly shifted their preferences away from crypto trading.

Download the full Coinbase PDF here

Largest Inflections: Strongest Growth & Worst Decliners

Posted at 17 Feb 2022 , Negative Inflections, Positive Inflection

Updated weekly, our industry leading email intelligence tracks consumers in near real-time. Identify trends and inflections before earnings, and ahead of the street.

UPDATED : Strong Demand Fastest Rising
UPDATED: Tepid Demand, Steep Slowing

UPDATED: Improving Detailed List

UPDATED: Slowing Detailed List

Promotional Index Launch

Posted at 13 Jul 2021 , blog, Greg Robin Random Walk

With more than 6 years of historical data tracking email promotional activity from nearly 300 consumer brands we are excited to launch our first data product!

This fall select clients can access structured weekly data for this first time.

Investors will be able to quantify and help answer the following:

  • Changes in campaign frequency
    • Did a brand run more marketing campaigns in order to drive sales?
    • Did a brand reduce campaigns as demand increases?
  • Growth in customer and lead lists
    • Has a business grown its lead list?
  • Intensity of promotional offers and discounts
    • Did the size of discount increase as a seasonal sale progressed?
    • Did the coupon specify a higher discount than prior periods?
  • Changes in promoted products
    • Are there changes in which products are being discounted?
  • Changes in targeting strategy
    • Is a brand struggling to hit sales quotas engaging in more “blasts” to its entire list?
  • Investors can run sector wide analysis to uncover outliers in promotional activity
Compare current promotional cadence with prior periods

AEO, ANF, GES: Promotional Ensemble Reveals Sharp Decline in Discounting

Posted at 05 Jun 2021 , blog, Case Study, Positive Inflection

Our promotional email ensemble helped investors better understand and quantify the magnitude of changes in the intensity and aggressiveness that apparel brands such as Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF), American Eagle (AE) and Guess (GES) are sending. As weather has warmed, our promotional ensemble reveals robust demand growth as consumers previously stuck at home load up on “going out” summer apparel.

Our promotional ensemble quantifies the changes such as key declines in the volume of email campaigns, the distribution discounts offered.

ANF: 93% decline in discounting email volume this May
Significant Promotion heat map measures changes weekly

Successfully channelling rebounding demand for swimwear, AEO’s Aerie has further throttled back its promotions.

  • AEO’: 80% drop in indentive emails

Our tracking on an sector basis reveals AEO has become one of the least aggressive promotors compared with its peers compared with just a year ago.

  • AEO: Sharp decline in total promotional activity compared to peers

For Guess, our email intelligence allows investors to quantify the exact campaign frequency and intensity. As can be seen below, Guess is pushing out significant promotions and discount coupons much less frequently than a year ago as organic demand has rebounded.