No recession here: Amazon.com reports best Christmas season ever... | |
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Anonymous Coward User ID: 579904 United Kingdom 12/26/2008 01:38 PM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | fucking stupid loser The US Christmas shopping season has proved to be one of the most dismal for decades. Total US retail takings dropped by 5.5% in November and by 8% in December, according to preliminary figures from SpendingPulse, a research arm of the credit card firm Mastercard. Excluding petrol, checkout takings fell by between 2% and 4%. The numbers are likely to stoke alarm about fragile consumer confidence in the US, where most analysts expect that fourth-quarter GDP figures will confirm that the economy is in a recession. Michael McNamara, vice-president of research and analysis at SpendingPulse, said blasts of heavy snow across the northern US had aggravated already weak conditions. "A difficult economic environment combined with unfavourable weather during the last week of shopping made 2008 one of the most challenging holiday shopping seasons in decades," he said. Shoppers appear to be putting their appetites first. Grocery and restaurant takings were relatively strong, as were online purchases for internet retailers such as Amazon. But luxury goods and the fashion industry took a battering. Women's wear sales slumped by 22% to 23%, sales of men's clothes dived by 14% and footwear dropped 13.5%. Takings at electronics stores plummeted by 26%. Faced with unsold stocks and a shortfall in year-end targets, shops offered unusually steep discounts in the run-up to Christmas. Department stores such as Macy's and Bloomingdale's and fashion outlets such as Ann Taylor are aggressively promoting swingeing price cuts of up to 60%. The National Retail Federation said many stores have loosened restrictions on after-Christmas returns of unwanted presents in the hope of luring more people into purchases. The federation has asked the incoming administration to introduce a series of sales tax "holidays" for 10 days during off-peak seasons in March, July and October in an effort to spark business and reignite the economy. "The situation is critical," said the federation in a letter to president-elect Barack Obama, citing "a disastrous combination of decreasing home values, increasing unemployment, reduced availability of credit, failures of major companies and weakness in the stockmarket". Britt Beemer, an analyst at America's Research Group, said recent surveys had shown that as many as 30% of Americans are concerned about their jobs. "That puts them in a survival mindset," he said. "They slice all their extra spending." Retail stocks swung lower in early trading on Wall Street. But Amazon proved to be an exception – its shares climbed 2.6% after it reported its busiest ever Christmas with 6.3m orders on its peak day, December 15. Among Amazon's top sellers was Coldplay's album, Viva la Vida. The firm said it had shipped enough CDs to stretch from Seattle to Violet Hill, the London street immortalised in a Coldplay song. Despite the poor retail figures, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 34 points in early trading yesterday. |
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