Clearly, there are some overtones for the industry, but I think largely Wal-Mart has some of its own issues. I think they are still very sloppy with store-level execution. |
Federated (Department Stores) was below plan. Target was well below plan, ... We have enough data to know the month was not good. |
Good technology is ensuring that the right product is in the store at the right time. |
It looks like in some cases, there's going to be some disappointing results coming out. |
It looks like sales really happened in the last few days, following a pattern we've seen in the last few years, |
It's certainly disappointing by any measure, ... I think the industry is going to be close to flat, with a zero- to-1 percent rise. Coming in, we thought the month would be up 2 to 3 percent. |
It's feast or famine. Some are getting (sales growth through discounts), some are getting it at full price. |
My hope would be that with the two dolls, they'll be able to appeal to a broader range of ages. |
We've gone from a situation where retailers were wildly excited about the prospects for 1996 to one where reality has set in. |