Retail’s early holiday 2025 results show modest growth

Some retailers provided early holiday results on Monday that showed the crucial shopping season was solid, but didn’t blow away expectations. 

Lululemon, which is preparing for a new CEO and staring down a proxy battle with its founder, said in a release it expects its holiday quarter to be “toward the high end” of its previously released guidance. Shoe maker Birkenstock and thrift store Savers Value Village also released lackluster early holiday results, while Abercrombie & Fitch cut the high end of its guidance. Meanwhile, American Eagle and Five Below bucked the trend and raised their guidance after better-than-expected holiday results.

Lululemon said it expects fiscal fourth quarter revenue to be close to $3.60 billion and earnings to be close to $4.76 per share. Both figures are at the high end of the guidance the company released in December when it announced fiscal third-quarter earnings. 

It made no changes to its previous guidance for gross margin, effective tax rate and selling, general and administrative expenses. 

Shares were about 1% higher in morning trading.

“We remain focused on executing our action plan to drive improvement in our U.S. business and look forward to the opportunities in front of us,” finance chief Meghan Frank said in a statement. 

When announcing last quarter’s earnings on Dec. 11, outgoing CEO Calvin McDonald said the company was “encouraged” by its early holiday performance but acknowledged wide discounting had driven demand during the Thanksgiving holiday period. When the shopping stretch ended, trends slowed, he said at the time. 

Like other higher-end brands, Lululemon has historically been very selective with discounts, but it has used them more liberally in recent quarters to offload old merchandise and styles that weren’t resonating with shoppers. 

During its fiscal third quarter, margins fell by 2.9 percentage points, due primarily to higher tariffs and the bigger markdowns, it said at the time. 

Abercrombie & Fitch shares dropped more than 18% in morning trading after the retailer cut the high end of its guidance despite posting what it called “record” quarter-to-date sales.

It’s now expecting full-year sales to grow “at least 6%,” down from a prior range of between 6% and 7%. It anticipates its operating margin, a closely watched metric on Wall Street, will be around 13%, compared to a previously expected range of between 13% and 13.5%. The company expects earnings per share to be between $10.30 and $10.40, trimmed from prior guidance of between $10.20 and $10.50.

“Our team remained on offense across product, voice, and experience, resulting in record quarter-to-date net sales through fiscal December, aligned with our expectations,” CEO Fran Horowitz said in a news release. “Importantly, we delivered balanced growth across our regions, brands, and channels.”

Birkenstock, which didn’t provide specific holiday-quarter guidance last year, said it expects sales in the quarter ended Dec. 31 to grow 11% to…