Macy’s (M), a popular name in the retail domain, is evolving itself remarkably to better adapt to the new retail ecosystem. The company has chalked out a few strategies under its three-year Polaris Strategy to progress in that direction. The plans include bolstering customer relationships, building four $1 billion brands, accelerating digital growth, optimizing its store portfolio, and reducing costs.
On the macroeconomic end, inflation is looming over the U.S. economy, and discretionary spending saw a deceleration in the month of November. Nonetheless, sequential increases, though modest, kept the retail market buzzing. Clothing and clothing accessories stores saw a 0.5% sequential increase in sales, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.
In Q3, Macy’s added 4.4 million new customers to its brand roster or the Macy’s brand, demonstrating the strong traction the company is witnessing among buyers.
Website Traffic Flow Finally Upwards
Nowadays, as the world has resorted to shopping digitally, tracking the online traffic inflow to Macy’s website has become all the more important. Even if a buyer does not ultimately shop from the website, more visits to a website help a search engine algorithm to capture the website and help it reach more users.
We found that visits to the Macy’s website from unique users spiked in the month of November, after a lackluster year. Specifically, in the period between October 21 and November 21, website visits jumped a significant 64.81%.
The growth in website visits was a welcome change after witnessing a steady and sharp fall between November 2020 and February 2021, following which website visits remained low. Comparing the traffic from unique visitors on a year-to-date basis, this year, the metric decreased 0.55% from the same period last year.
From a global outlook, shoppers sitting in the United States contributed to 90.7% of the traffic to Macy’s website.
Evidently, eCommerce is a highly dynamic industry – with new trends influencing shopping activities every year and every season. The upcoming holiday season had probably prompted the increased online shopping activities in November. As we enter 2022, leaving the worst of the pandemic behind us, we are likely to see a slowdown in the eCommerce industry compared to 2020. However, this is not really bad news for Macy’s, which boasts 794 brick-and-mortar stores across 732 locations.
Experts Have Mixed Opinions
Earlier this month, Cowen & Co. analyst Oliver Chen reiterated a Buy rating on Macy’s stock, with a price target of $45. He believes that Macy’s digital platform and valuation make it a good investment bet for 2022.
However, the rest of Wall Street seems to be cautious about Macy’s; and this sentiment is reflected in the Hold consensus rating, based on 3 Buys, 3 Holds, and 4 Sells. Macy’s stock projections show an average price target of $37.10.
Disclosure: At the time of publication, Chandrima Sanyal did not have a position in any of the securities mentioned in this article.
Disclaimer: The information contained in this article represents the views and opinion of the writer only, and not the views or opinion of TipRanks or its affiliates Read full disclaimer >
