Macy’s Leads The Rare Good Day On The Market For Physical Retailers

Macy’s had a good day on The Street on Monday, as data rolled in indicating that foot traffic declines had been somewhat less pronounced at clothing stores than in other segments of brick-and-mortar retail. Data from National Traffic Devices analyzed by Cowen indicated that foot traffic remains on the decline across brick-and-mortar retail – down 9.7 percent year over year for the week ending July 15. But those declines were not evenly spread. Clothing store traffic fell only 5.3 percent year to year, while electronics led declines back with a year-over-year decline of  26.2 percent.

The good(ish) news for apparel retail translated to some good news for apparel retailers. Macy’s was up 3.1 percent on the day, Kohl’s picked up 2.7 percent and Ralph Lauren ended the day 2 percent higher.

eCommerce players – other than Amazon – had something of a rougher day. Blue Apron, the leading start-up player in the meal kit space, saw its stock price fall on the announcement that Amazon had trademarked the phrase “We do the prep. You be the chef.” We can only imagine what will happen if they actually design a service around that phrase.

Blue Apron shares dropped 10.5 percent to $6.59, marking a discount of a third from the company’s initial public offering price of $10 a share. Amazon shares rose 0.8 percent to $1,010.04, just shy of last month’s record closing high of $1,011.34.