With scorching temperatures across large swaths of the United States, it’s hard to believe that we’re on the doorstep of Autumn. Yet shoppers will soon be on the hunt for fall fashions and the most design-conscious consumers will browse the collections of luxury retail department stores like Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom and others. But data from Grips suggests these retailers will struggle to match their revenue targets.
A Grips analysis of e-commerce trends among a custom aggregation of multi-brand luxury retailers in the United States shows that e-commerce revenues for the 12 months ending July 2023 were down by a relative three percent year-over-year and July 2023 revenues declined by six percent compared with the year prior.
The analysis, which included online sales on Nordstrom.com, NeimanMarcus.com, Bloomingdales.com, BergdorfGoodman.com, Ssense.com, MatchesFashion.com and MyTheresa.com revealed that MatchesFashion.com, a once rising star, has lost its shine posting a 40 percent drop in sales during the last 12 months. Similarly, MyTheresa.com is struggling with revenues down 11 percent year-over-year.
Nordstrom and Bloomingdale’s, which combined account for nearly two-thirds of the e-commerce sales of the analyzed set, saw revenues decline by eight percent and three percent respectively in the last year. Meanwhile, Neiman Marcus outperformed the category average by holding revenues steady year-over-year.
While consumers spent less with most luxury retail department stores, Ssense and Bergdorf’s saw annual e-commerce sales increase by 22 percent and 59 percent, respectively. But that good news may be short-lived. That’s because Bergdorf’s e-commerce growth in June and July was up only seven percent year-over-year and Ssense saw an eight percent decline in revenues in June and a 23 percent decline in revenues in July, suggesting that the tides may be turning for both retailers.
In fact, all of the retailers included in this analysis except one saw weaker revenue growth in July than they did for the past 12 months in aggregate, which is a red flag. The only retailer to buck the trend was Nordstrom which saw an 11 percent year-over-year increase in revenues in both June and July.
With warning bells going off, it’s important to stay on top of industry trends and Grips provides daily reporting with no lag on the e-commerce sessions, transactions and visits of thousands of sites.
Looking at the aggregated daily revenues for these sites over the past five weeks, we see that the trend line points to a clear week-over-week drop in sales. Much of that decline is due to Nordstrom’s declining revenues between late July and late August.
Relative to the comp set (excluding My Theresa), Nordstrom.com saw its average weekly share of category revenue drop to 51 percent during the week ending August 23th from 59 percent the week ending July 26th. All other retailers saw their respective market share increase with NeimanMarcus.com gaining the most with market share rising to 17 percent from 14 percent in the last five weeks. Bloomingdales.com nearly matched Neiman’s market share growth rate with market share rising to 20 percent from 16 percent in five weeks, cutting the gap between Bloomingdale’s and Neiman Marcus considerably as we head into fall and then the critical holiday season.
Will the category continue to slide into negative territory? Will Nordstrom rebound? Will Bloomingdale’s and Neiman Marcus present a more serious challenge? And will Ssense and Bergdorf’s regain the fire that drove revenues markedly higher in the last year?
To find out, request a live demo of the Grips Competitive Intelligence platform to learn how Grips can help you gain market share by gaining complete visibility into your competitor’s sales, including monthly and daily revenue, average order values, conversion rates, product assortment and more.
