Name: Former Walmart U.S. CEO: retailers see holiday returns as opportunity
Uploaded: 2025-12-26T20:23:08.461Z
Duration: 2 min 31 s
Description: Bill Simon, former Walmart U.S. CEO, joins ‘The Exchange’ to discuss how holiday returns will impact retailers’ bottom lines and what this says about consumers.

Bill Simon, former Walmart U.S. CEO, joins ‘The Exchange’ to discuss how holiday returns will impact retailers’ bottom lines and what this says about consumers.

Bill Simon, former president and CEO of Walmart U.S., explained that retailers typically expect 16-17% of holiday sales to be returned, a figure consistent with previous years. Rather than viewing returns as a setback, retailers use this period to encourage further purchases, often through aggressive discounting in January.

Simon noted that the 2024 holiday season saw retail sales growth of about 4%, with total sales expected to surpass $1 trillion for the first time. He highlighted that discounters like Walmart, Amazon, and Costco performed well, while mid-tier department stores faced challenges due to inventory issues.

Former Walmart U.S. CEO: retailers see holiday returns as opportunity

Just when you thought you made your last trip out to the mall or the shopping center this year, it's time for returnuary. According to the National Retail Federation, retailers estimate about 17% of their holiday sales will be returned this year. So how do all those returns impact a store's bottom line and what does it say about the consumer? Let's ask Bill Simon. He's the former president and CEO of Walmart U.S. Bill, it's great to see you and I guess stores are trying to really take advantage of this and something that's usually a headache for them and the consumer, maybe turn it into more of a positive opportunity. Oh yeah, sure. That's usually how it goes. That number 16-17% is pretty standard for the holiday season. And you know, really retailers look at it as just another opportunity to get somebody to buy something else. So come in and trade out, buy something else. You'll see really aggressive discounting as you head into January. So it's part of the normal process and an indication of actually a pretty good selling season. How would you say the selling season, I mean, from what we know, how do things go overall? You know, we have kind of a couple of things happening. You have all these shifts in the retail landscape, you know, that have been happening for years. And then you have an uncertain consumer this year, low consumer sentiment, as we know, sour attitudes, a lot of talk about the affordability challenges, and yet it appears like it was a decent season. Yeah, it looks to be a really almost quite good season if you believe the credit card data and they're usually pretty accurate. You know, we're probably talking about 4% or maybe low 4% growth rate in retail sales this holiday season, and that's really quite good. Now, there's some, you know, price pressure in there, so maybe 200 basis points of that's price increases, but that still means there's some good growth. I think it's going to top a trillion dollars in the holiday selling season for the first time. So by and large, pretty good. You know, I don't want to say you're a stock picker, but you know the space, you maybe have an eye on some areas of opportunity or an area where things maybe look too over consensus. I mean, what do you think? What do you like in the retail landscape right now? Well, you know, consumers really, you know, really drives the bus. They're smart and they're, you know, very particular in what they're buying. And right now they're buying discount. They're buying off price and they're buying deals. So the discounters, my old company, Walmart, you know, is a machine and they'll keep going. Amazon is just cranking and they're going to have a great quarter. Costco looks to have done pretty well. I think the mid-tier department stores might be a bit challenged. You know, I think Target might have had a better Christmas than they did last year, but they're still pretty heavy in inventory. So I think they've got continued challenges.

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