Retailing Quotations

The ongoing dot.com market correction is far from having a negative effect on online retailing as a whole. It has actually led online retailers to renew their focus on customer service, cost reduction and profitability.

Unprecedented in its size and scope, Higher Expectations Week unifies concerned citizens to highlight the myriad of problems Wal-Mart creates, ... Together, this national movement is moving toward making the retailing giant a better employer, neighbor and corporate citizen.

The fact that O'Reilly posted in-line results makes it unlikely that we will see above-consensus results anywhere else within the auto parts retailing industry.

We're constantly on the look-out for new projects and monitoring the market. We'd like to bolster our core assets, including exploration, refining, processing and retailing assets in the regions where we have a strong presence.

No doubt, these are both very well known retailing brands to the consumer.

French retailing has shown signs of strength. Germany on the other hand does not look so good.

Having been a Home Depot supplier for many years, I am well aware of how the company has established itself as a true retailing leader.

It is a critical eight- to 10-weeks for retailing and for the producers. The retailers and PC hardware manufacturers work on razor-thin margins, so the impact there could be pretty severe.

I think that there is buzz in the retailing community that Detroit is on its way.

I think what we are seeing in retailing are certain sectors doing better than others. In general, the department stores have not been performing well.

I think Conaway is a good retailing executive, but he made too many mistakes at the very beginning of his tenure at Kmart. It is quite possible that his background and length of experience did not sufficiently qualify him for the immense job he was taking on.

Our core business has been really strong. That's to say, just our retail stores grew at 6 percent year over year. And again, this was a depressed quarter. We've actually been 7 percent or more in most quarters and we expect it to be that way during the fall period. That's one of the strongest performances in all of retailing. So our core retailing business remains exceptionally strong.

Retailing is retailing, and Kmart was not where it should have been. From that point of view, I think that new blood has got to be a benefit.

Retailing in general is highly competitive and most companies have very poor returns on invested capital. Unless you create a barrier of entry, you're never going to see very big returns.

Retailing and consumer spending are a function of a four-letter word -- jobs. And there are no jobs being formed in the United States at the present time. We are in an unfortunate labor climate, one that might be called not at all propitious for retail spending.

Retailers turn a profit by bringing in new merchandise and pushing self-purchase categories like lingerie, shoes and denim. Retailing is an event-oriented business. Look at any national holiday, retailers seize on it and find a way to market heavily and drive traffic.

Mass merchandising and discount retailing is moving in a big way toward private labels and exclusive designer brands, ... That Wal-Mart is rumored to be contemplating something like this is logical, given the trend in the industry.

I think if you look at sectors that have been beaten down, a lot of the retailing companies come to mind,

We envision that this project will be comprised of residential, office, major retailing and perhaps a hotel. It will likely be built in phases.

We believe there could be a shakeout in the B2C (business-to-consumer) online retailing sector as companies that have had to spend aggressively to gain new customers will be running out of money.

We have had a series of rate increases since last year, and so far we have not felt any impact on retailing off all of these increases. However, eventually something will have to give. I would predict that, say towards the end of the year, the fourth quarter, the very all-important holiday fourth quarter, we are going to see that the rate increases will finally take a bite. And that could be a comfort to retailing.

To better serve our customers in this highly competitive retailing environment, we must concentrate on our best national brands and reduce costs so we can deliver outstanding value to shoppers, ... We believe that continuing to build Macy's and Bloomingdale's aggressively across America will accelerate our comp store sales performance and increase profitability, thereby driving shareholder value.

Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton once said, 'High expectations are the key to everything' and we agree. Since April of this year, Wal-Mart Watch has been leading the public education campaign to reveal the full effects of Wal-Mart's business practices. Launching Higher Expectations Week with 200-plus charter partners moves us into the next phase of our efforts. Unprecedented in size and scope, Higher Expectations Week unifies concerned citizens to highlight the myriad problems Wal-Mart creates. Together, this national movement is moving toward making the retailing giant a better employer, neighbor and corporate citizen. We are also a sponsor of the educational efforts for the new film by Robert Greenwald, 'Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices' and believe as people view this film, the momentum for our efforts will only continue to grow.

This remains one of the most interesting major retailing case studies in the past 20 years.

There is a bloodbath in retailing in terms of competition.

Toby's intimate knowledge of online retailing will be a tremendous asset as we leverage our growing online businesses to serve our customers and provide a seamless and integrated shopping experience with our stores,

There is a lot of pent-up demand from companies that haven?t found a place to locate. That?s part of the evolution of how retail moves. People have ideas and concepts and retailing advances around those ideas. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don?t.

With retailing and manufacturing both very weak, the fact that services are slowing is particularly worrying.

We think some of the retailing stocks are interesting, ... The tax cuts will be spent on companies like Home Depot or maybe Tiffany.

There's no question that competition in retailing is rampant and out of hand. It's getting increasingly difficult for companies to keep their heads above water. That's why the industry is getting into gear for more merger activity.

I understand transformation, but supermarket marketing and customer service . . . that is just 101 retailing and there is just no excuse for getting that wrong.

These are all of the things that super Wal-Marts kill when they are scattered over the county, and I fear that if you put a Wal-Mart in each little precinct, you'll have no other business. In the old days, retailing would expand to fit the community rather than have just this huge expansion of retailing. The whole idea of planning is to direct resources where they are needed. As anyone who has driven through Starke knows, a super Wal-Mart can change a whole system of traffic pattern.

Rapidly evolving and newly emerging technologies have forever changed the ways GM shares information and conducts business in the automotive retailing industry. We want to leverage the capabilities of these IT suppliers to help GM strengthen its relationship with its retail dealers and, in turn, provide the dealers with the tools that deliver greater flexibility to facilitate vehicle orders, manage vehicle and service parts inventories and, above all, sell GM cars and trucks.

Despite the macro concerns, today's strong results should remind investors that Lowe's is executing as well in retailing today, has some significant sales and earnings drivers in installed sales, commercial and distribution, and faces a competitor that is slowing square footage and looking to improve operating margins in its core.

The buyer that makes most sense is the buyer that has a strong presence in the traditional retailing of toys.

They're worried about publishing and retailing like everyone else in the business, and this may be a way for them to stay on top of this.

It seems that heavy discounting succeeded in clearing unwanted inventory, but only in some areas of retailing and at the expense of retailers' profit margins.

It's a tough retailing environment.  The real question is have they been able to pull back a bit on the cost structure? ... Can we read enough into this quarter to gain enough confidence to expect they will break even in the fourth quarter?

It's true that retailing is going through a shakeout period and more companies are trying to attract the customer through technology by making it fun to shop, ... But if you're going to replace people with machine at stores, why shouldn't people just shop on the Internet then?

Consumer retailing is moving from primarily physical product to a combination of physical and digital, ... It's really not just limited to the changeover from physical to digital. It's the full breadth of products.

The biggest thing that hovers over online retailing stocks is offline retail data.

It's Dumb Day in retailing and the decision to change Field's name to Macy's will go down with the

New York is the one place in America where discount retailing is really underdeveloped. The major chains have only really gotten there in the last four to five years.

The fact they increased to 42 percent was a major step towards Wal-Mart's commitment to Seiyu and to the Japanese retailing market.

I left Penney's in 1969 to join the Nixon administration and I didn't come to the Senate until 1992, but I brought with me a residual understanding of retailing and retailing issues. That expertise was helpful and I did some things, frankly, that were helpful to the J.C. Penney Co. If it's good public policy, the fact that I brought that experience and expertise with me probably contributed to it.

India represents a $250 billion retail market, growing 7.2 percent a year, but modern retailing is just starting to emerge This shows us that India is a huge organic growth opportunity for Wal-Mart.

Christmas, in retailing terms, is coming later and later each year as consumers play chicken with the high street and delay their spending in the expectation of late price cuts as the big day draws nearer.

The key for success in retailing today is to understand what makes shopping fun and then make sure the entire shopping experience is designed to maximize the shoppers' pleasure.

The economics of online retailing are very different from those of store retailing -- online customers complete their own transactions and therefore, not only expect to receive, but are entitled to receive direct-from-warehouse pricing,

America's franchised auto dealers are hanging out the help wanted sign all across the country. The careers available in the auto retailing industry are intellectually challenging with opportunity for advancement. Pay and demand for these positions are high and these are jobs that cannot be outsourced to other countries.

I not only knew I wanted to go into retailing, I also knew I wanted to go into business for myself.