Thursday, July 12, 2012

Could Costco, JCP Suffer for Downplaying Black Friday?

Wal-Mart (WMT) opened for “Black Friday” sales this year on Thursday night at 10 p.m., two hours earlier than the previous year. And Target (TGT) moved up its opening to midnight. Both stores appeared to benefit from deal-fever that overcame consumers this year. In general, discounters are expected to post the strongest gains in November, according to estimates from Thomson Reuters.

But some stores were less aggressive with their holiday promotions, and some analysts expect them to suffer for it.

Costco (COST), for instance, could get hurt by its less promotional stance around Black Friday.

“Overall, we believe a big Black Friday could have siphoned off traffic from COST as they do not open early nor promote especially that day,” writes Stifel Nicolaus analyst David Schick. Schick sees Costco posting a 5% increase in same-store sales, below the Street median estimate of 6.5% (above target’s 2.8% expected growth) . Costco’s same store sales growth is being aided by food inflation and more affluent customers migrating to the store.

JC Penney (JCP) delayed its Black Friday opening until 4 a.m. this year, and its same-store sales are expected to fall 1% in November.

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