Amid mounting economic uncertainty this holiday season, nearly three-quarters of U.S. shoppers plan to spend less than or the same as last year, according to a new Goldman Sachs consumer survey. And Club holding Amazon (AMZN), a leading retailer for holiday sales and promotions, should be a top destination for American bargain-hunters. American consumers are being squeezed by persistent inflation, high interest rates and a broader economic slowdown, meaning many have less money in their pockets to shell out on gifts. Goldman Sachs expects total holiday retail sales to grow between 6% and 8% throughout November and December, compared with 13.5% growth during the same two-month period last year. That’s why many shoppers are likely to choose Amazon’s ecommerce platform for its regular deals, varied price points, extensive offerings and quick delivery times. Goldman’s analysis comes amid an uptick in consumer spending, with retail sales rising last month and inflation cooling , according to recent U.S. government data. At the same time, earnings at big U.S. discount retailers Walmart (WMT) and Target (TGT) this week showed Americans are prioritizing spending on staples like groceries over discretionary items like clothes. Goldman Sachs polled 1,000 U.S. consumers to gauge spending trends for holiday shopping this year. The survey results, released Friday, found 43% of respondents plan to spend less this season than last year, 23% expect to spend the same and 31% indicated they could spend more on holiday items than last year. Higher-income consumers are also likely to spend less this year, the survey found. “To date, U.S. consumer spending has remained resilient despite inflationary challenges,” Goldman analysts wrote in a note Friday. But macroeconomic pressures, along with a shift in spending from goods to services like dining out and travel, should compress holiday shopping and lead to slower ecommerce growth in the fourth quarter, the analysts said. Nonetheless, Amazon maintains “the largest share of implied holiday purchasing with 33% of consumers planning to spend the most at Amazon,” followed by Walmart. As consumers search for value, Goldman expects a “highly promotional environment” across online retail platforms, with consumers holding off opening their wallets until they find deals. Almost 30% of respondents surveyed by Goldman plan to complete most of their shopping during the annual Black Friday sales event on Nov. 26 — providing a “healthy backdrop” for Amazon, Walmart and Ross Stores (ROST), according to Goldman. Bottom line We agree with Goldman’s analysis that Amazon is one of the best-positioned players in the discount retail space to benefit from this year’s holiday shopping. Amazon has exhibited a flexibility to accommodate shifting shopping habits by offering deals like its Prime Early Access Sale event in October. We’ll be looking out for data on consumer trends this season to see how Amazon may be reaping the rewards. The company’s ability to effectively manage expenses is another swing factor we’ll be monitoring, as Amazon looks to restore its stock price, which has fallen more than 43% year-to-date. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long AMZN. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
Amazon signage is displayed outside of an Amazon.com Inc. delivery hub in the late evening of Amazon Prime Day, July 12, 2022 in Culver City, California.
Patrick T. Fallon | AFP | Getty Images
Amid mounting economic uncertainty this holiday season, nearly three-quarters of U.S. shoppers plan to spend less than or the same as last year, according to a new Goldman Sachs consumer survey. And Club holding Amazon (AMZN), a leading retailer for holiday sales and promotions, should be a top destination for American bargain-hunters.
U.S. stocks closed lower on Wednesday for the second time in three days after a choppy session as a rally inspired by softening inflation data appeared to take a breather. Market strategists cited concerns about Target Corp.’s TGT, -13.14%
earnings for helping to weigh on equity prices Wednesday. The S&P 500 SPX, -0.83%
finished down 32.87 points, or 0.8%, to 3,958.86. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.12%
was off 39.22 points, or 0.1%, to 33,553.70. The Nasdaq Composite COMP, -1.54%
closed off 174.75 points, or 1.5%, to 11,183.66.
Target’s profit plunged 52% in the third quarter and the retailer warned of a sluggish holiday.
Target blamed inflation and a deteriorating economic outlook for its miserable quarter — and also lowered its outlook for the rest of the year. That sent shares down more than 12% in premarket trading.
CEO Brian Cornell said that in recent weeks that “sales and profit trends softened meaningfully, with guests’ shopping behavior increasingly impacted by inflation, rising interest rates and economic uncertainty.”
Still, it wasn’t all bleak: Sales of necessities were strong, including food and house essentials. Similar to Walmart, Target said sales in “discretionary categories” like electronics and clothing hampered its bottom line.
Target
(TGT) plans to reduce costs by $3 billion over the next three years in an effort to “simplify and gain efficiencies across its business with a focus on reducing complexities and lowering costs,” it said.
Looking forward to the busy holiday shopping season, Cornell said the “rapidly evolving consumer environment means we’re planning the balance of the year more conservatively.” Target forecasts a low-single digit percentage decline in sales at stores open at least a year.
“This quarter confirms that the middle-class consumer has been hit hard by inflation and is changing the way they spend by trading down, buying more value-priced goods, and shifting to white label products,” said Hilding Anderson, head of retail strategy at digital consultancy Publicis Sapient, in an email. “It suggests continued headwinds for the non-value players in big box retail during the balance of this holiday season.”
Earlier this year, Target’s inventory glut forced the company to hold massive discounts on big-ticket items to alleviate the problem. It marked down prices on some discretionary purchases that consumers have pulled back on and canceled pending orders from suppliers.
Target shares are down more than 20% for the year.
Stocks are coming off a strong week, thanks in large part to a cooler-than-expected inflation reading that prompted hopes of lighter rate hikes from the Federal Reserve. The S&P 500 had its best week since June, while the Nasdaq had its best frame since March. Even with the Democrats holding the Senate (more on that below) there is still strong potential for the GOP to win the House and usher in gridlock in Washington, which would likely limit new regulations and tax increases. Still, Fed officials are cautioning that it could take a while for the central bank to bring inflation to heel. “Quit paying attention to the pace and start paying attention to where the endpoint is going to be. Until we get inflation down, that endpoint is still a ways out there,” Fed Governor Christopher Waller said Sunday. Read live market updates here.
U.S. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) speaks at a U.S. midterm election night party for New York Governor Kathy Hochul in New York, New York, U.S. November 8, 2022.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
The U.S. Senate will remain in Democrats’ hands after their incumbents in Arizona and Nevada – Mark Kelly and Catherine Cortez Masto, respectively – were projected to win their races over the weekend. Those victories once again give Democrats 50 votes in the chamber, good enough for a majority, with Vice President Kamala Harris acting as the tie-breaker. The party could boost its leverage a bit more with a win in December’s runoff between Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock and his Republican challenger, Herschel Walker. That would take some power away from centrist Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and conservative West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, but they would remain pivotal on tight votes. Even if the House flips Republican, Democratic control of the Senate will make it easier for Biden to appoint judges and new Cabinet members.
Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and chief executive officer of FTX Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange, speaks during a Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2022.
Sarah Silbiger/ | Bloomberg | Getty Images
There’s been a whilrwind of revelations and developments since fallen investor Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto company FTX filed for bankruptcy Friday. The company, now under the control of new CEO and restructuring chief John Ray, clamped down on trading and withdrawals after a series of “unauthorized transactions” took place soon after it declared bankruptcy. Meanwhile, new CNBC reporting says Alameda, a trading firm that Bankman-Fried founded, quietly used billions of dollars in customer funds from FTX in a manner that evaded the attention of investors, employees and auditors. Bankman-Fried, who had donated millions to Democratic political causes, also came under fire from Washington, signaling a major shift for the crypto industry. His downfall has prompted calls for stronger scrutiny from the right and left alike.
Signage at a Walmart store in Secaucus, New Jersey.
Lucas Jackson | Reuters
It’s retailers’ turn in the earnings spotlight, and it couldn’t be a more crucial time for the industry. The holiday shopping season is practically under way, even though Black Friday is just under two weeks away. This week, investors will get a clearer picture of how well retailers are drawing customers, as well as whether the companies are having any success plowing through piles of unwanted inventory at steep markdowns. writes CNBC’s Melissa Repko. Here is a schedule of retailers’ earnings reports this week:
U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping met Monday in Bali on Nov. 14, 2022.
Saul Loeb | Afp | Getty Images
President Joe Biden on Monday met face-to-face with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, for the first time since he moved into the White House in January 2021. While the two presidents have spoken through multiple video conferences and calls, the in-person meeting ahead of the G-20 summit comes at a particularly tense time, between concerns over Taiwan and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, among other things. “We need to find the right direction for the bilateral relationship going forward and elevate the relationship,” Xi said, while Biden stressed that the two countries can compete without it turning into a conflict.
Bob Chapek, Disney CEO at the Boston College Chief Executives Club, November 15, 2021.
Charles Krupa | AP
“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” might have had a huge opening weekend, but cost cuts are coming to Disney. In a memo obtained by CNBC on Friday, CEO Bob Chapek told his division leaders that Disney, which is coming off a rough earnings report, would seek to trim spending across the company. That means a targeted hiring freeze, limits on travel and eventual staff cuts, Chapek wrote in the memo, which you can read here.
– CNBC’s Yun Li, Kevin Breuninger, Jacob Pramuk, Kate Rooney, MacKenzie Sigalos, Paige Tortorelli, Brian Schwartz, Melissa Repko, Evelyn Cheng and Alex Sherman contributed to this report.
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The stock market’s rally after October’s inflation report will be tested in the week ahead, as investors watch some major retailers’ earnings and a flurry of Federal Reserve speakers. But the main event is the market itself and whether it can turn a supercharged move higher into a more lasting rally that lifts stocks into the end of the year. The major averages were higher again Friday after a cooler-than-expected consumer price index Thursday triggered the best day for stocks in two years. CPI for October was up 7.7% over a year ago, lower than the 7.9% pace expected. Stocks finished the week with strong gains Friday afternoon. The tech sector was up 10% for the week. The Nasdaq Composite powered ahead of other indexes, and was up more than 8% for the week. This week, bond yields also came off their highs and were sharply lower, paving the way for gains in tech and growth shares. “The CPI was better than expected, elections came out with minor gridlock, earnings haven’t been a disaster,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley Financial. “It just shows there’s probably support for equities, and the calendar is favorable. The midterm election cycle has a perfect track record of being better six months down the road.” Market pros will continue to watch for any spillover from the selloff in cryptocurrencies, following the dramatic implosion of crypto exchange FTX. FTX filed bankruptcy Friday. “There’s a correlation between the crypto correction and risk assets…The FTX wipeout is not the last we hear of it,” said Hogan. “There’s probably linkages to other players, but it’s hard to know.” What to watch Earnings are expected from Walmart and Home Depot Tuesday, Other retailers, like Target and Macy’s also report that week. Those store chains should provide a look at how consumers are dealing with higher interest rates and inflation. Another glimpse at consumer behavior will come when the Census Bureau releases October retail sales report, expected Wednesday. According to Dow Jones, it is expected to show a 1.2% jump in retail sales, up from a flat result the month before. Real estate data will also be released, with housing starts Thursday and existing home sales Friday. Both are expected to be weaker as rising mortgage rates take a toll on the sector. The Empire State manufacturing survey is released Tuesday, and the Philadelphia Fed manufacturing survey is released Thursday. “I’m going to be watching retail sales for sure, and we get our first November industrial numbers with the New York and Philly Fed,” said Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at Bleakley Advisory Group. “To me, those are the most relevant things and then technically to see if there’s any follow-through on bonds and whether the Treasury move has more to it.” On the geopolitical front, any progress from a meeting in Indonesia Monday between President Joe Biden and China President Xi Jinping could be positive for market sentiment. “I understand the angst with China, but it’s in nobody’s interest to be be going head-to-head with the second biggest economy. if anything could just cool tempers, that would be a good thing,” Boockvar said. Reprieve from rising rates Investors will also be watching closely to see if the reprieve from rising rates in the Treasury market continues in the coming week. The closely watched benchmark 10-year yield ended Thursday at 3.81%, after falling more than 30 basis points after the CPI report. [A basis point equals 0.01 of a percentage point]. The cash bond market was closed Friday for Veterans’ Day. “Was that a relief rally and that was it? People are going to feel much more comfortable with the 10-year yield below 4% than above 4%,” said Boockvar. The 10-year is key since it influences mortgage rates and many consumer and business loans. The drop in the 10-year yield, which moves opposite price, also helped drive a sharp rally in tech and growth names. Those high-priced stocks, which are priced on future earnings, benefit most from low rates and cheap money. The test for yields could come in the first days of the coming week. The action in stocks will be important, as market pros watch to see if the rally has legs or is derailed by the parade of Fed speakers. They include Fed Vice Chair Lael Brainard, New York Fed President John Williams and Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari to name a few. “Everybody on the Fed is hawkish. There’s just a degree of hawkishness — moderate and uber,” said Hogan. “I think the market has started to pay increasing attention to the growing chorus of moderate hawks.” Hogan said that group includes Bullard, Brainard and San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly. “I think that group grows next week,” he said. Hogan said Fed officials could push the message that the central bank is slowing its hiking pace but will continue to hold rates high. The Fed announced it could hike by 50 basis points as soon as the December meeting, following four 75 basis point hikes. The message would be “let’s slow the pace, and see if there’s any effect,” said Hogan. “It’s a well-known fact that monetary policy has long and variable lags.” Paul Christopher, head of global market strategy at Wells Fargo Investment Institute, said the market could be getting ahead itself in its bullishness over the inflation report. “CPI beat by two ticks. What if it misses by two ticks next month?” he said. Christopher said the Fed will ultimately stop raising rates but will not cut them, and stocks will face even more challenges this year. “I think the market is probably going to reevaluate itself after its euphoria… You still have to get through another inflation report and another Fed meeting,” he said. “Inflation is still pretty sticky at services level,” he said. “…We think illiquidity is what comes next.” Technically speaking There’s an active debate in the market as to whether the surge Thursday was the start of a year-end rally, since the market has mostly been positive in the fourth quarter of midterm election years. Many strategists are calling the move higher a bear market rally, and some expect it will fizzle in December while others say it could continue into the new year. “Thursday’s surge surpassed even what options markets were expecting for volatility post CPI. Equities, Treasuries and currencies all showed some of the largest movement seen in years. [The S & P 500’s] move above late October highs puts a major decline on the back burner for the time being,” writes Mark Newton, Fundstrat head of technical strategy. The S & P 500 gained 5.5% Thursday, its best day since April 2020. “The real question of whether ‘the low’ is in all has to do with whether Technology has truly bottomed along with Treasuries. I’m inclined to say no on both counts,” Newton wrote in a note. Newton said he expects stocks could continue to trend higher for now, and 4,100 on the S & P 500 is a strong resistance level. “If reached into early December, one would consider that an area where [the S & P 500] should stall out and backtrack into 2023,” he noted. For short-term investors, he advises them to stay bullish unless 3,859 is broken and then watch for 3,700 below that. Newton points out that peaks in August, September and October were reached mid-month, while June and July saw mid-month troughs. He said that suggests there could be a short-term top leading to weakness on Nov. 22 and 23. “My take is that selloffs into that time should be buyable, and it will only be necessary to truly turn bearish again if 3,700 is broken which might not occur until next year,” he added. Week ahead calendar Monday Earnings: Tyson Foods, BuzzFeed, ThredUp , Oatly, Aecom 11:30 a.m. Fed Vice Chair Lael Brainard 6:30 p.m. New York Fed President John Williams Tuesday Earnings: Walmart, Home Depot , Vodafone, Krispy Kreme, Tencent Music, Valvoline, Energizer, Aramark, Advance Auto Parts 8:30 a.m. PPI 8:30 a.m. Empire State manufacturing 9:00 a.m. Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker 9:00 a.m. Fed Governor Lisa Cook 10:00 a.m. Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr at Senate Banking Wednesday Earnings: Target, Cisco , Lowe’s, Tencent Holdings, Shoe Carnival , TX, Grab Holdings, NVIDIA , Copa Holdings, Bath and Body Works, Sonos 8:30 a.m. Retail sales 8:30 a.m. Import prices 8:30 a.m. Business leaders survey 9:15 a.m. Industrial production 9:50 a.m. New York Fed’s Williams 10:00 a.m. Fed Governor Barr at House Committee on Financial Services 10:00 a.m. Business inventories 10:00 a.m. NAHB survey 2:35 p.m. Fed Governor Christopher Waller 4:00 p.m. TIC data Thursday Earnings: Applied Materials , Alibaba, Macy’s, Siemens, Burbery, BJ’s Wholesale, Kohl’s, NetEase, Pershing Square, Weibo, Gap, Palo Alto Networks, Ross Stores, Post Holdings 7:30 a.m. Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic 8:00 a.m. St. Louis Fed President James Bullard 8:30 a.m. Initial claims 8:30 a.m. Housing starts 8:30 a.m. Philadelphia Fed manufacturing 9:15 a.m. Fed Governor Michelle Bowman 9:40 a.m. Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester 10:40 a.m. Fed Governor Philip Jefferson and Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari 1:45 p.m. Minneapolis Fed’s Kashkari 6:15 p.m. Chicago Fed President Charles Evans, Fed Chair Jerome Powell, San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly, and New York Fed’s Williams at event celebrating Evans. No policy comments are expected. Friday Earnings: JD.com, Foot Locker, Buckle 8:40 a.m. Boston Fed President Susan Collins 10:00 a.m. Existing home sales 10:00 a.m. Leading index 10:00 a.m. Quarterly services survey
We may be paying a price for our pumpkin-spice cravings.
A new study from the MagnifyMoney.com website has found that retailers routinely charge more for pumpkin-spice items than for the standard versions of those same products — in fact, a lot more. On average, the pumpkin-spice “tax,” as MagnifyMoney.com dubs it, is 14.1%.
That’s a significant increase from 2020, which was the last time MagnifyMoney looked at the pumpkin-spice pricing differential. At that time, the “tax” was 8.8%.
“I think companies are finding it’s a great way to capitalize on a seasonal trend,” said Ismat Mangla, executive editor of MagnifyMoney.com. “As long as consumers are willing to pay for it, they can take advantage of it.” MagnifyMoney.com, which is owned by LendingTree, offers information on how to manage and grow your money.
Craig Agranoff, a Florida-based marketing expert, put it this way: “It’s Retailing 101.”
Some retailers really push the pumpkin-spice upcharge to the upper limits, the 2022 study noted. A case in point: Trader Joe’s, the supermarket chain beloved for its low prices, charges 161.1% more for its Pumpkin Spiced Teeny Tiny Pretzels than for its Honey Wheat Pretzel Sticks. The retailer also charges 49.9% more for its Pumpkin Spice Hummus than for its Mediterranean Style Hummus.
And what about Starbucks SBUX, -1.60%,
the coffee chain that made pumpkin spice a household favorite? The study found that it levies an 18.3% “tax” on its ever-popular Pumpkin Spice Latte (or PSL), with a standard 16-ounce latte running $5.45 and the PSL costing $6.45.
Trader Joe’s and Starbucks didn’t respond to a MarketWatch request for comment.
Agranoff said consumers are probably willing to pay more for pumpkin-spice products without complaining because the products are not considered essentials. By contrast, consumers tend to be very sensitive when it comes to price increases on items they need to buy on a regular basis, such as milk or gasoline.
Still, not every retailer is asking consumers to shell out more for pumpkin-spice products. Target TGT, -1.28%
charged less for several items versus the standard ones, the MagnifyMoney.com study found. One example: A bag of Pepperidge Farm Milano pumpkin-spice cookies was 14.3% cheaper than the traditional Milano cookies at Target.
Regardless of whether the price is higher or lower, Mangla of MagnifyMoney.com isn’t one to buy these products. “Personally, I’m over pumpkin spice,” she said.
The costs squeezing nearly every retailer are starting to resolve for Target as the chain discovers areas to grow, even during an economically challenging period, Jefferies said. Analyst Corey Tarlowe upgraded the stock to buy from hold with an increased price target of $185 from $170. The new forecast implies an upside of just under 24% over Target’s last close. “While margins continue to face pressure from the clearing of excess inventory as well as elevated supply chain costs and product cost inflation, we view these as largely near-term headwinds,” he said in a note to clients. “Looking ahead to next year, we believe TGT’s margins are likely to benefit from lapping the self-inflicted markdown pressure related to excess inventory as well as lapping elevated supply chain and product costs as commodity prices and container costs decline.” One of the biggest challenges Tarlowe noted for the company is inventory, but he said the company is starting to move forward. Inventory growth outpaced sales growth for the past three quarters – a typical story for retailers as supply chain issues that held up stock during the pandemic resolved at the same time that consumer demand began to slide due to inflation and a shift in spending from goods to services. But he noted executives saying the company has been able to reduce ownership in areas that would need markdowns to move inventory, making him confident of an improved outlook going forward. “We believe the majority of inventory-related issues are likely behind TGT and expect relatively lower markdown risk ahead vs other retail peers given the company’s strategic initiatives around inventory,” he said. Similarly, he said the company’s most intense downward earnings revisions are also behind it. There’s upside ahead, he said, as freight costs continue to come down and e-commerce becomes more efficient. The company will also benefit from expanding partnerships with brands such as Ulta and Disney that drive sales growth. The company has an average consumer income of around $60,000, which can help shield it from inflationary challenges as he noted higher earners have not reported feeling hit as hard as lower-income shoppers. In the same note, he assumed Walmart at buy and increased the price target to $165 from $161, which implies 25.7% upside compared to the last close. He said the retailer could stand to gain as consumers trade down to lower-priced items and retailers as inflation continues to pinch pocketbooks. Target’s stock was up 3.2% before the bell. It is trading down about 35.5% so far this year. — CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report.
Amazon AMZN, -0.76%
is debuting a new holiday shopping event this week called “Amazon Prime Early Access Sale” where shoppers can get exclusive access to hundreds of thousands of deals ahead of the holidays.
The new sale is essentially another Amazon Prime Day event, where subscribers can get certain deals for a 48-hour period, just with a different name.
As millions of shoppers are impacted by record-high inflation in the U.S., some data still suggest, consumers are still set to spend more than last year this holiday season.
According to data insights from Adobe Inc. ADBE, -1.00%, online-only holiday spending (Nov. 1 to Dec. 31) is expected to grow 2.5% in 2022, representing the smallest increase since Adobe began tracking this data in 2015. In 2021, holiday spending was 8.6% higher than the year prior, despite, at the time, the rate of U.S. inflation at a 30-year high.
Here’s what you need to know about Amazon’s Early Access Sale:
When is Amazon Prime’s Early Access Sale?
Amazon’s savings event is two days long, running from Tuesday, Oct. 11 through Wednesday, Oct. 12.
What time does Amazon Prime’s Early Access Sale start?
The Early Access Sale begins at midnight PT (3 a.m. ET) on Tuesday, Oct. 11, and runs for 48 hours, through the end of the day on Wednesday, Oct. 12.
Which countries participate in Amazon Prime’s Early Access Sale?
Fifteen countries in total are participating in the deals. Those countries include: Austria, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the U.K., and the U.S., according to Amazon.
How does Amazon Prime’s Early Access Sale work?
Items for sale can be viewed on Amazon.com or on Amazon’s app. Anybody can locate which items are listed on sale through Amazon’s platform, but the deals are only available to Prime subscribers, similar to how Amazon’s flagship annual savings event Prime Day is structured.
Is Amazon Prime’s Early Access Sale only for Prime members?
Yes. Only Prime members can participate in the deals. Non-Prime members can make purchases on Amazon, but won’t get the type of savings that members get — non members also don’t get access to typically cheaper, and sometimes free shipping costs.
Additionally, people who sign up for a 30-day free trial of Amazon Prime can participate in the Early Access Sale.
How much does Amazon Prime cost?
An Amazon Prime subscription is $14.99 a month, or $139 for a full year. The subscription includes access to free delivery on millions of items, Prime Video, Prime Gaming, Amazon Music, and Amazon Photos, and broadcasts of “Thursday Night Football.”
Earlier in 2022, Amazon increased its Prime subscription price from $119 to $139.
Amazon increased its Prime subscription price from $119 to $139 in 2022.
What are the best Amazon Prime Early Access deals this year?
According to a statement from Amazon prior to the event beginning, some of the top deals will be on items including Fire TVs, Alexa enabled devices, and products from LEGO, Adidas ADS, -1.14%
and Ashley Furniture.
There will also be a Top 100 list that features the best deals on the e-commerce platform. The list will highlight the most popular products being purchased, Amazon says, and will launch in unison with the event’s start on Tuesday.
Are retailers like Target and Walmart starting holiday deals too?
Target Inc. TGT, +0.51%
announced customers will enjoy “earlier than ever” holiday shopping deals this year, including seven weeks of Black Friday deals, marking another instance when retailers are ditching the traditional shopping calendar of the holidays.
Last month, Walmart WMT, +0.58%
announced a “holiday guarantee” that extends the return window for purchased items, beginning Oct. 1, and running through Jan. 31.
As the US attempts to wean itself off its heavy reliance on fossil fuels and shift to cleaner energy sources, many experts are eyeing a promising solution: your neighborhood big-box stores and shopping malls.
The rooftops and parking lot space available at retail giants like Walmart, Target and Costco is massive. And these largely empty spaces are being touted as untapped potential for solar power that could help the US reduce its dependency on foreign energy, slash planet-warming emissions and save companies millions of dollars in the process.
At the IKEA store in Baltimore, installing solar panels on the roof and over the store’s parking lot cut the amount of energy it needed to purchase by 84%, slashing its costs by 57% from September to December of 2020, according to the company. (The panels also provide some beneficial shade to keep customers’ cars cool on hot, sunny days.)
As of February 2021, IKEA had 54 solar arrays installed across 90% of its US locations.
Big-box stores and shopping centers have enough roof space to produce half of their annual electricity needs from solar, according to a report from nonprofit Environment America and research firm Frontier Group.
Leveraging the full rooftop solar potential of these superstores would generate enough electricity to power nearly 8 million average homes, the report concluded, and would cut the same amount of planet-warming emissions as pulling 11.3 million gas-powered cars off the road.
The average Walmart store, for example, has 180,000 square feet of rooftop, according to the report. That’s roughly the size of three football fields and enough space to support solar energy that could power the equivalent of 200 homes, the report said.
“Every rooftop in America that isn’t producing solar energy is a rooftop wasted as we work to break our dependence on fossil fuels and the geopolitical conflicts that come with them,” Johanna Neumann, senior director for Environment America’s campaign for 100% Renewable, told CNN. “Now is the time to lean into local renewable energy production, and there’s no better place than the roofs of America’s big-box superstores.”
Advocates involved in clean energy worker-training programs tell CNN that a solar revolution in big-box retail would also be a significant windfall for local communities, spurring economic growth while tackling the climate crisis, which has inflicted disproportionate harm on marginalized communities.
Yet only a fraction of big-box stores in the US have solar on their rooftops or solar canopies in parking lots, the report’s authors told CNN.
CNN reached out to five of the top US retailers — Walmart, Kroger, Home Depot, Costco and Target — to ask: Why not invest in more rooftop solar?
Many renewable energy experts point to solar as a relatively simple solution to cut down on costs and help rein in fossil fuel emissions, but the companies point to several roadblocks — regulations, labor costs and structural integrity of the rooftops themselves — that are preventing more widespread adoption.
The need for these kinds of clean energy initiatives is becoming “unquestionably urgent” as the climate crisis accelerates, said Edwin Cowen, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Cornell University.
“We are behind the eight ball, to put it mildly,” Cowen told CNN. “I would have loved to see policy help incentivize rooftop solar 15 years ago instead of five years ago in the commercial space. There’s still a tremendous amount of work to do.”
Neumann said Walmart, the nation’s largest retailer, possesses by far the largest solar potential. Walmart has around 5,000 stores in the US and more than 783 million square feet of rooftop space — an area larger than Manhattan — and more than 8,974 gigawatt hours of annual rooftop solar potential, according to the report.
It’s enough electricity to power more than 842,000 homes, the report said.
Walmart spokesperson Mariel Messier told CNN the company is involved in renewable energy projects around the world, but many of them are not rooftop solar installations. The company has reported having completed on- and off-site wind and solar projects or had others under development with a capacity to produce more than 2.3 gigawatts of renewable energy.
Neumann said Environment America has met with Walmart a few times, urging the retailer to commit to installing solar panels on roofs and in parking lots. The company has said it’s aiming to source 100% of its energy through renewable projects by 2035.
“Of all the retailers in America, Walmart stands to make the biggest impact if they put rooftop solar on all of their stores,” Neumann told CNN. “And for us, this report just underscores just how much of an impact they could make if they make that decision.”
According to Environment America, Walmart had installed almost 194 megawatts of solar capacity on its US facilities as of the end of the 2021 fiscal year and additional capacity in off-site solar farms. The company’s installations in California were expected to provide between 20% to 30% of each location’s electricity needs.
Target ranked No. 1 for on-site solar capacity in 2019, according to industry trade group Solar Energy Industries Association’s most recent report. It currently has 542 locations with rooftop solar — around a quarter of the company’s stores — a Target spokesperson told CNN. Rooftop solar generates enough energy to meet 15% to 40% of Target properties’ energy needs, the spokesperson said.
Richard Galanti, the chief financial officer at Costco, said the company has 121 stores with rooftop solar around the world, 95 of which are in the US.
Walmart, Target and Costco did not share with CNN what their biggest barriers are to adding rooftop or parking lot solar panels to more stores.
Approximate number of households companies could power with rooftop solar
Walmart — 842,700
Target — 259,900
Home Depot — 256,600
Kroger — 192,500
Costco — 87,500
Source: Environment America, Frontier Group report, “Solar on Superstores”
“My suspicion is that they want an even stronger business case for deviating from business-as-usual,” Neumann said. “Historically, all those roofs have done is cover their stores, and rethinking how [they] use their buildings and thinking of them as energy generators, not just protection from rain, requires a small change in their business model.”
Home Depot, which has around 2,300 stores, currently has 75 completed rooftop solar projects, 12 in construction and more than 30 planned for future development, said Craig D’Arcy, the company’s director of energy management. Solar power generates around half of these stores’ energy needs on average, he said.
Aging rooftops at stores are a “huge impediment” to solar installation, D’Arcy added. If a roof needs to be replaced in the next 15 to 20 years or sooner, it doesn’t make financial sense for Home Depot to add solar systems today, he said.
“We have a goal of implementing solar rooftop where the economics are attractive,” D’Arcy told CNN.
CNN also reached out to Kroger, which owns about 2,800 stores across the US. Kristal Howard, a Kroger spokesperson, said the company currently has 15 properties — stores, distribution centers and manufacturing plants — with solar installations. One of the “multiple factors affecting the viability of a solar installation” was the stores’ ability to support a solar installation on the roofs, Howard said.
Cowen, the engineering professor at Cornell, said solar is already attractive, but that labor costs, incentives and the different layers of regulation likely pose some financial challenges in solar installations.
“For them, this means usually hiring a local site firm that can do that installation that also knows local policy,” Cowen said. “It’s just another layer of complexity that I think is beginning to make sense because the costs have come down enough, but it needs kind of reopening that door of getting into an existing building.”
Rep. Sean Casten of Illinois, who co-chairs the power sector task force in the House, said the US has “failed to provide the incentives to people who have the expertise to go in and build these things.” The reason both retail companies and the power sector have not made much progress on solar is because “our system is so disjointed” and has a complex regulation structure, Casten said.
“Why aren’t we doing something that makes economic sense? The answer is this horribly disjointed federal policy where we massively subsidize fossil energy extraction, and we penalize clean energy production,” Casten told CNN. “For a long, long time, if you wanted to build a solar panel on the rooftop of Walmart, your biggest enemy was going to be your local utility because they didn’t want to lose the load.
“We could have done this decades ago,” Casten added. “And had we done it, we would not be in this dire position with the climate, but we’d also have a lot more money in our pocket.”
For Charles Callaway, director of organizing at the nonprofit group WE ACT for Environmental Justice, strengthening the rooftop solar capacity in big box retail stores is a no-brainer, especially if companies allow the local community to reap benefits either through installation jobs or sharing the electricity produced later.
Either way, it would put a massive dent in curbing the climate crisis and help usher in an equitable transition away from fossil fuels — and it’s doable, Callaway told CNN.
The New York City resident led a worker training program that helped train more than 100 local community members, mostly people of color, to become solar installers. He also formed a solar workers cooperative to ensure many of the participants of the training program get jobs in a tough market.
In the last two years, Callaway said his group has not only installed solar panels on roofs of affordable housing units, but also equipment capable of producing 2 megawatts of solar energy on shopping malls up in upstate New York. He emphasized that hiring locally would be most beneficial since local installers know the community and local regulations best.
“One of my huge concerns is social equity,” Cowen said. “Access to renewable energy is a fairly privileged position these days, and we’ve got to figure out ways to make that not true.”
Jasmine Graham, WE ACT’s energy justice policy manager, said the potential of building rooftop solar on big box superstores is encouraging, only “if these projects use local labor, if they are paying prevailing wages, and if this solar is being used in a manner such as community solar, which would allow [utility] bill discounts for folks that live in the same utility zone.”
Pressure is mounting for global leaders to act urgently on the climate crisis after a UN report in late February warned the window for action is rapidly closing.
Neumann believes the US can meet its energy demand with renewables. All it takes, she said, is the political will to make that switch, and the inclusion of the local community so no one gets left behind in the transition.
“The sooner we make that transition, the sooner we’ll have cleaner air, the sooner we’ll have a more protected environment and better health and the sooner we’ll have a more livable future for our kids,” Neumann said. “And even if that requires investment, it is an investment worth making.”
