Best Buy Leads CE Retailers With Most In-Stock Items in Goldman Sample; Target Has Fewest

CE retailers continued to face out-of-stock issues last week, Goldman Sachs said in its latest weekly e-commerce report for the holiday shopping season, but all goods in its sample basket were available from at least one of the major four retailers tracked in the report: Amazon, Best Buy, Target and Walmart. For the week, Best Buy continued to be the retailer with the most in-stock items, with only its Hobbit PS3 bundle unavailable. Target was out of more stock than last year at this time, showing 13 of 19 items in the virtual basket unavailable, Goldman said. Amazon lowered its average advertised basket price by the widest margin for the week, coming in as the most aggressive on advertised pricing and prices of in-stock items. Amazon re-stocked, too, last week, bringing back the full selection of TVs in the basket including four from Samsung and four from Vizio, after having removed four of eight TVs in the basket the previous week. Best Buy led with 18 of 19 items in stock, and prices at Best Buy nudged ahead by half a percentage point after “lowering them significantly” last week, Goldman said. The overall advertised basket price dropped 2.6 percent across the four retailers last week, and Target held the position as highest priced. Target also had the fewest basket items in stock, selling out of both Canon cameras in the basket and two of eight TVs, Goldman said. In addition to the Samsung and Vizio TVs, Goldman’s basket includes three Beats by Dr. Dre headphones, two Canon digital cameras, a 16 GB iPad mini, PlayStation 3 and 4 bundles, an Xbox 360 bundle, an iHome Bluetooth speaker and a Garmin navi unit.