• Home
  • Community Banks
  • Merchants
  • News
  • Home
  • Community Banks

    Community Banks

    We take pride in creating a merchant services program that complements each of our partners’ unique circumstances within its respective community, all while maximizing the program’s efficiency and revenue opportunities.

    About the Program

    Bank Home
    Dashboard
    Program Overview
    Marketing Resources
  • Merchants
  • Contact Us

    Contact Us

    Our industry-leading service team and business consultants are just a phone call or click away. 

    p:  330.702.8415
          800.487.5577
    f:   866.476.8416

    A small number of callers are experiencing issues when dialing our 800 number. If you cannot connect, please try calling our secondary number at 330.702.8415, contact us via email at info@finet.net or use the contact form at the bottom of the page. 

    info@finet.net

    Facebook Twitter Youtube

    Business Hours

    Monday – Friday: 8:30am – 5:00pm ET

    During off-hours, support for emergency issues is available by calling the 24/7 help desk for your specific processor or equipment provider. Consult your program documentation or terminal hardware for the appropriate contact information.

  • Home
  • Community Banks

    Community Banks

    We take pride in creating a merchant services program that complements each of our partners’ unique circumstances within its respective community, all while maximizing the program’s efficiency and revenue opportunities.

    About the Program

    Bank Home
    Dashboard
    Program Overview
    Marketing Resources
  • Merchants
  • Contact Us

    Contact Us

    Our industry-leading service team and business consultants are just a phone call or click away. 

    p:  330.702.8415
          800.487.5577
    f:   866.476.8416

    A small number of callers are experiencing issues when dialing our 800 number. If you cannot connect, please try calling our secondary number at 330.702.8415, contact us via email at info@finet.net or use the contact form at the bottom of the page. 

    info@finet.net

    Facebook Twitter Youtube

    Business Hours

    Monday – Friday: 8:30am – 5:00pm ET

    During off-hours, support for emergency issues is available by calling the 24/7 help desk for your specific processor or equipment provider. Consult your program documentation or terminal hardware for the appropriate contact information.

Retail Trends

Retailers await new customers, opportunities and a spending boom

FiNet
June 15, 2021

Last year will go down in history for many things, but in retail circles, it will be remembered as the year that comps went out the window. So extraordinary were the impacts of 2020 COVID lockdowns that it has rendered traditional year-on-year sales comparisons meaningless while breathing life into the so-called 2-year stack that looks back to the gains made 24 months ago in the pre-pandemic era.

As Mastercard Senior Adviser and former Saks CEO Steve Sadove told PYMNTS in a recent discussion, when you put 2021 against a comparable point in 2019, the retail growth emerges, with categories like apparel up 11 percent and department store sales rising over 9 percent.

“We haven’t seen nine and a half percent year on year on year stacked in department stores as far back as I can remember — and I’ve been doing it for a long time,” he noted. “So this is a consumer who wants to get back into malls and stores. They want fashion.”

And they generally want to get back out there, he added. After a year of lockdowns, dining out, going to shows on Broadway, seeing sporting events and just hanging out together in public is coming back into style.

And it’s not just that consumers shopping more. Sadove noted the purchasing patterns are changing. People are branching out from the athleisure uniforms they wore on their couches as they contemplate going back to weddings, parties and offices. Women are buying new dresses and jewelry, and luxury is seeing a comeback, as shoppers of all ages anticipate returning to the real world on a more regular basis.

It’s a more exuberant retail environment than it has been in over a year — the act of going out shopping is in and of itself exciting for consumers who have been stuck indoors for many months. However, the sudden shift to digital and the push to eCommerce channels will not evaporate now that the world is undergoing its grand reopening. The pace of digital acceleration might slow down from the record-breaking pace of the last year, said Sadove, but anyone expecting a reversal is sorely mistaken.

“Digital is still an extremely important part of the story,” he said. “We’ve probably accelerated several years of the growth of digital omnichannel, and the consumer is still digital-first in many ways. They’re still searching online. They’re still going to buy an awful lot of their goods that way.”

And as new data flows in, it becomes increasingly clear that the market will be a very different place in many ways. The back-to-school shopping season is getting an early boost in 2021, much like holiday shopping in 2020, with Prime Day coming earlier than usual (June 21-22).

And the back-to-school season may see shifting demographics this year, as much younger consumers are unusually primed to become primary consumers. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that young (see teenaged) workers are about to have a busy summer jobs season as food service and retailer players scramble to refill their employment roosters. In May, the share of 16- to 19-year-olds who work rose to 33.2 percent, the highest rate since 2008, according to figures from the Labor Department. That’s a huge reversal from this time last year when teenage employment hit a record low of 20 percent (though it is still far from the all-time high of the 1970s when roughly half of all teenagers had jobs).

And those now employed, and hence paid, teenagers are coming of age in a market with a growing plethora of digital tools to help speed up and manage those funds, per previous PYMNTS reporting.

And students and young consumers are not alone in making their grand re-entry to the real world over the next several months — which means we can expect to see some changes in retail over the next several months, as back-to-school and back-to-work shopping ramps up.

“I think that it’s a very healthy environment for both the retailers and the consumers,” Sadove noted.

Not a perfect market, to be certain, as there are all kinds of hurdles still to be cleared — but one that looks encouraging and will likely remain that way for the next several months.

Source: PYMNTS


4 reasons your small business should go cashless
Previous Article
Commercial Card growth in a post pandemic environment
Next Article

7355 California Avenue
Boardman, OH 44512
p: 330.702.8415
    800.487.5577
f: 330.702.8416
    866.476.8416

© 2023 FiNet, Inc.

FiNet is a registered ISO/MSP of BMO Harris Bank NA

Privacy Policy
Envelope Facebook-f Twitter Linkedin Youtube

Community Banks

Community Banks Home
Program Overview
Dashboard
Marketing Resources

Merchants

Processing Services
Business Mgmt/Payments
Retail POS Systems
Additional Solutions
FREE Cost Analysis

Company

Contact Us
Click to access the login or register cheese
Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}