Stores Are Crammed With Unsold Merchandise, Especially Clothes

Image courtesy of Listener42

Here’s some great news for bargain-hunters, if not necessarily for retailers: dismal sales numbers from national retailers have experts worried about the future of American malls. Low sales numbers mean stores crammed with inventory that will have to be put on sale. That could boost total sales numbers, but hurt profits.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because it’s similar to what happened in department and specialty clothing stores at the end of 2015, too. Retailers blamed unseasonably warm weather for poor sales of winter clothes.

“Right now, retailers have started cutting back on deliveries for the third and fourth quarter,” a retail analyst explained to Reuters. That might mean stores end up ordering too little new merchandise during the back-to-school and holiday seasons during the second half of the year, or that they might still be trying to unload merchandise from the first half of the year.

Where you’re less likely to find deep discounts later this year are Walmart and off-price clothing and household goods stores like T.J. Maxx, Ross, and Marshalls, since shoppers have shifted a lot of their clothing spending to those stores.

Unsold U.S. retail inventory a challenge after dismal earnings season [Reuters]

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