How Retailers ended up with major overstocks in Large TVs and other categories in June 2022
The series started by considering an announcement of an overstock situation in multiple categories (including TVs) in early June 2022 by Target. The next post explored just how missing the demand shift was magnified by existing thinking and systems. This post focuses on large-screen TVs, and how that category became overbought.
Mass market consumer retailers in the North American market are highly tuned to run on minimal inventory (see historical problems at Walmart with keeping high demand items on shelves). In response to consumer demand, millions of units are at various stages of component orders, finished goods manufacturing, logistics, and retailer inventory.
See what forecasts looked like several years back -
Here’s a Jan 2022 -forecast showing a drop in 2021 and slight recovery in 2022 -
Large TVs are easily aspired to/visualized and enjoyed by consumers as accessible ‘big ticket’ consumer discretionary spending purchases generally needing only minimal installation (not like a swimming pool or new roof). Simple demand signals, and demand over multiple seasons, were quickly translated into manufacturing and production orders throughout the supply chain.
Consumer Disposable Income expenditure change – 2020 – 2022, (Source – US Bureau of Economic Analysis)
As EkaLore has written about elsewhere the rise of streaming (video played over the internet) has risen dramatically in the events since 2019. The acquisition of more large TVs was an easy way for families to ‘stay-in’ and amuse themselves. Multiple large TVs per household seemed to tell the large retailers and manufacturers a story of few limits to continued consumer uptake.
Our next post explains how enterprises can get creative to get some profit back after missing the speed with which consumer demand has shifted. Read it at
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