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Wal-Mart versus Macy’s: The battle of the demographics
December 5, 2007
There was an interesting piece in USA Today on the comparable demographics of shoppers who frequent Wal-Mart, Macy’s and Neiman Marcus. The November 21, 2007 article, entitled “Go-Go No-Go Christmas,” was written by Mindy Fetterman and compared everything from income to professions to race for those who frequent these retailers. (I would normally provide a link to the article but the ever enterprising USA Today charges to read its archived articles.)
What I found of particular interest was the comparable incomes of their respective shoppers.
When I boiled their figures down I found two statistics to be the most compelling:
- Over 40% of Macy’s and Neiman Marcus shoppers earn over $100,000 a year.
- 46% of Wal-Mart shoppers earn less than $40,000 a year.
Higher income shoppers should be less influenced in their shopping by rising fuel bills and decreasing housing values. So, will the department stores fare better than Wal-Mart in same store sales this Christmas? Will upper income shoppers feel the need to do some value shopping and move “down” to Wal-Mart?
Stay tuned.
Posted by Richard Gottlieb on December 5, 2007 | Comments (0)
