Dive Brief:

• Shares of apparel brands fell Thursday over concerns about apparel sales. Aeropostale Inc., Express Inc., American Eagle Outfitters Inc., and PVH Corp.’s Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger brands saw shares fall as sales missed analyst estimates. Aeropostale’s share price fell 41%, its biggest one-day decline in 13 years, as it forecast a loss of as much as 17 cents per share; analysts had estimated a $0.02 profit, expecting a holiday lift.

• The apparel space is struggling even at the holidays, with stores especially overstocked in colder-weather apparel, according to Shelley E. Kohan, VP of retail consulting at physical-store analytics company RetailNext. “There was heavier discounting in apparel areas certainly going into the holidays, that’s very evident and apparent,” Kohan told Retail Dive.

• But Kohan also notes that retailers overall will probably have a good holiday season thanks to generally solid strategic promotions going into the holidays. November sales in physical stores fell 5.6% with a decline in traffic of 7.6%, but that was smaller than the previous five months. Conversion for November was flat, an increase from October's decline. Excluding Black Friday, which saw, as expected, the highest sales, transactions, and conversion, Saturday, Nov. 21 had the next-highest sales, traffic, ATV, and SPS, according to RetailNext.

Dive Insight:

Apparel sales continue to disappoint, a particularly vexing problem for retailers that sell mostly clothes and accessories.

But retailers generally have positioned themselves well going into the holidays, and physical stores saw more people actually making purchases last month, according to RetailNext.

“As we got into Thanksgiving, there was a great uptick in traffic,” Kohan says. “That speaks to people very interested in getting out. The weather helped tremendously. Shoppers were very aware of promotions that retailers were going to roll out Thanksgiving and even beyond that.”

That shows that shoppers got a head start on Black Friday shopping the weekend before Thanksgiving. Furthermore, though, Kohan said she has found that this year retailers and brands are being more strategic and less panicked about their pricing. 

“Last year a lot of retailers were caught off guard going into Thanksgiving,” she says. “Cyber promotions started early last year and there was more panic last year. It’s measured this year, thought out and planned. There are really great discounts and deals on a few items, for example, and the rest of the items aren’t cut as deep promotionally. I think that bodes well.”

Still, she says, consumers are extremely price-savvy, and for some items may be patient enough to wait for prices to come down as December wanes.