This past week brought a lot of news on the beauty market with earnings from Procter & Gamble, e.l.f. Beauty, Estée Lauder, and L’Oréal. The takeaway from those is that luxury part of the market remains robust, but L’Oréal is taking a lot of share from Estée, which is in trouble. The mass part of the market has experienced a further slowdown. That divergence demonstrates that the K-shaped consumer economy in the U.

Grocery Outlet Holding announced Q4 results along with a new CEO, Jason Potter – The Fresh Market’s recent CEO, and a restructuring program. (The CEO change was expected) This follows the appointment of its new CFO / CIO in January – Chris Miller from Shamrock Foods. The restructuring program notably: (1) lowers the unit expansion rate to 34 new locations (down from the prior plans 54), (2) seeks to terminate leases for some of the unopened stores, (3) includes warehouse project cancelations, and (4) involves layoffs.

Looking at the off-price sector overall, comp-traffic was solid and while the rate was slower QoQ, that deceleration largely reflected the abbreviated shopping period this year (five fewer days and one fewer weekend between Thanksgiving and Christmas). Sales were likely little impacted as more items per visit were purchased. As has been the case all year, TJX’s Marshalls and TJ Maxx led its peers Ross Dess for Less and Burlington in comp traffic growth and likely in comp-store sales per Advan’s estimates.

Lowe’s and Home Depot both noted a very strong December that benefited due to calendar shifts to the detriment of November and January. As shown in the chart above, the traffic in the two weeks following Christmas was very robust. Also of note, the deep drop in traffic ahead of Christmas reflects the absence of one weekend between Holiday-2024 and -2023. (The basket size is up a lot during this period.

Savers Q4 results showed US sales up +10.5% and comp-sales up +4.7%. The sales increase was ahead of Advan’s +8.2% estimate* (+/- 40 bps T4Q Moe, 95% T5Q correlation). The 230 bps of outperformance largely reflects a +580 bps contribution from the bolus of new stores opening in the 2H (vs. the 6-month trend of 390 bps). (The year-end U.S. store count was up +11.6% vs the 1H’s +8.6%.) Unfortunately for the company, its large Canadian business continues to be an anchor with comp-sales down -2.

Sprouts reported Q4 results showed sales up +18%, comp-sales up +11.5%, and gross margin up +160 bps. The sales increase was well ahead of Advan’s +15.4% estimate* (+/- 130 bps T4Q Moe, 96% T8Q correlation) although Advan’s estimate did correctly forecast a beat vs consensus**. E-commerce grew at a much stronger +37% rate, which added 300bps to the comp growth; additionally, a larger basket size contributed to comp-growth. Those two led to the outperformance versus our estimate.

Walmart U.S. Q4 results showed sales up +5.0%, comp-sales up +4.6%, and operating margin up +12 bps. The sales increase was ahead of Advan’s +4.3% estimate* (+/- 90 bps T4Q Moe, 55% T8Q correlation). Excluding e-commerce, curbside, store delivery, and marketplace, comp-sales increased +1.7%. Excluding the average ticket increase of +1.8% implies a slight comp-traffic increase for the period, right in line with Advan’s +0.6% estimate. (Management did say in-store comp transactions were positive.

Ahold reported a stronger set of figures for Q4. Per Advan Research, traffic is even better 2025-to-date, including for its Stop & Shop, as shown in the chart below. The improvement is on both a 1-year and 2-year basis for all Ahold brands. On its results, management noted that volumes for the U.S. business had finally turned positive and that consumers were responding to its price investments in the market (i.

Differentiation was the key to growth in sales and market share in food retail in 2024 – a challenging year for conventional retailer offerings. As shown above, Whole Foods enjoyed robust comp-traffic all year long, and the traffic aligns with its reported sales growth rate of mid-single-digits-plus, with a Q4 increase of +8%. (Mid-February comp-traffic is +7% on a T4W basis.) In our observations at their locations, the success stems from leveraging the Amazon relationship, sharper value on its offering, and solid execution on retail fundamentals.