Retail Search Group

Consumer retail spending in October continued to be solid, with many retailers reporting good comparable store increases. Limited Brands reported a 6% rise in same-store sales and raised their quarterly Wall St. outlook. Victoria’s Secret led the charge with a 9% comp store increase.

Thomson Reuters released that some 11 retailers were slightly off Wall St. estimates. That said, most retailers still generated excellent growth. Joel Bines, managing director at Alix Partners released to the Associated Press, “It’s still a solid performance.”

The department store sector continues to demonstrate its focus on fashion, with Nordstrom posting 5.4% growth, even after +10.7% in September. Dillard's was the October leader with an 8% increase. And Neiman Marcus also continues as a leader, closing their most recent quarter with an 11% increase.

Based upon slow and steady Washington politics the American consumer is expecting few changes to unemployment or money policy through 2011. We believe holiday sales 2011 will continue this solid volume trend, with potential for the strongest sales growth since holiday 2007 of the Great Recession.

Fashion and Home Gaining Momentum
Fashion is the pacing element for apparel retailers. Chicos FAS continues as a fashion leader with +12.9% for October. In the younger strata Buckle and Abercrombie led their segments with +8.9% and +9.0% growth, respectively. The sameness represented at GAP is attracting little attention. Unfortunately, Gap’s death spiral continued with a -6% performance. Pier 1 continues to dazzle with +10.8% for their most recent quarter.

Talent Wars
Our business is helping our Client partners attract top talent away from their competition. That process becomes more complicated when the candidate has several different offers to consider or a home to sell, or both. The Talent Wars are on.

If your HR professionals are having a challenging time filling positions it’s simply a product of a more complicated market. Dedicated recruiting professionals may be a solution. We ask the tough questions up front so that finalists are ready to accept an offer if one is generated. If your HR team is getting their offers turned-down on mission-critical positions then it may be time to engage our services.

The leading retail brands engage our services because we deliver the top performing candidates. We cold call and attract the best talent from the competition, then deliver them to our Client partners. Be a part of the winning retail team, be a part of Retail Search Group. Since beginning in 1985 we’re in our 26th year dedicated to attracting and placing retail professionals.

Our highly tenured retail team delivers recruiting expertise in the following areas:

Retail Field Operations
Human Resources
Buying and Global Product Development
Retail Finance & Accounting
Merchandise Planning & Allocation
Distribution Services
Retail Multi-Channel Marketing
Visual Presentation

Click here for October National Retail Sales Results