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27 Dec 2011 10:42

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Biz: Blue light not-so-special: Sears, K-Mart locations closing due to falling sales

  • 120 locations will close amid a longstanding decline source
  • » Sales down across the board: Since K-Mart and Sears merged into one company back in 2005, sales have declined yearly, a trend that continued during this year’s all-important holiday season. (A holiday season, mind you, where things were actually looking positive for most retail chains.) At Sears, sales fell by 6 percent. At K-Mart, they fell by 4.4 percent. Together, that’s a 5 percent decline. The company has long kept underperforming stores open despite declining sales, but they’ve chosen to cut off dead weight this time, which has the potential of buoying the performance of the 2,000-plus U.S. stores and 500 Canadian stores between the two chains.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

13 Dec 2011 11:08

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Biz: Black Friday backfire: Best Buy’s profits nosedive on heavy deals

  • 29% drop in Best Buy’s profits in the third quarter source
  • » Too many deals? Best Buy, which has become shorthand for “company that throws all its chips in on Black Friday,” lost its bet on this year’s Black Friday, as its third-quarter results (which include the waffle-iron-rioting-day) showed major weaknesses, as discounts got people into the stores but failed to get them to actually work as loss-leaders. “They were more promotional and that doesn’t bode well for the holiday season, which is going to be very, very intense,” noted Barclays Capital analyst Alan Rifkin.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

27 Nov 2011 20:34

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Biz: How much did people spend over Black Friday weekend?

  • $52.4 billion spent on Black Friday weekend (whoa)
  • $45B the amount spent during Black Friday weekend last year; that’s a 16 percent jump, for those playing at home
  • 226M number of shoppers over Black Friday weekend; that’s also a huge leap from 2010, and a record number
  • $398 the amount spent per customer on Black Friday weekend — a jump of more than $40 from 2010 source
  • » A big win for retail, but for humanity … eh. The heavy spending this year came with a number of downsides, most notably in the form of a series of customers-acting-crazy moments. We covered a few of these over the weekend, including an overzealous pepper sprayer and a riot over $2 waffle irons. Sure, the economy needs a serious kick in the pants, but we hope we can get said kick in the pants while being nice to our fellow human beings. Fortunately, tomorrow is Cyber Monday, where the problems with physical shopping don’t exist. Unless you know a way to shut off your neighbor’s internet. In which case you’re evil and we don’t like you anymore.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

25 Jan 2011 10:59

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Biz: Consumers pretty confident in January, ready to take on world

  • 60.6 consumer confidence level – the highest since May source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

28 Dec 2010 10:57

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Biz: Consumers bought more this Christmas, but not feeling confident

  • good Consumers bought more stuff in the week before Christmas than they did a year earlier – a solid 4.8-percent jump. It’s a great holiday season overall for retail.
  • bad However, consumer confidence managed to fall in December, suggesting that we still in fact have a long way to go before we’re back to normal, guys. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

27 Nov 2010 23:28

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Biz: Black Friday final tally: More hype, more people, slightly more sales

  • 2.2% the increase in Black Friday foot traffic
  • $10.7B the total sales tallied on Black Friday
  • 0.3% the increase in sales from last year source
  • » How it compares: It’s roughly the same increase in sales as last year, but then again, retail stores have been offering sales for weeks before Black Friday, which may have cannibalized the overall effect of the day. On the plus side, at least that collapsed Salvation Army building in Colorado didn’t fall on anyone.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

16 Nov 2010 10:19

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Biz: Wal-Mart makes big profit jump, but U.S. stores struggle

  • $3.44 billion in Wal-Mart profits in the 3rd quarter alone
  • +9.3% Wal-Mart’s overall gain in third-quarter profit
  • -1.3% the decine at U.S. stores open one year or more
  • +7.9% the increase in profits at international stores source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

15 Nov 2010 10:12

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Biz: Retail sales make big leap last month, thanks to auto sales rebound

  • 1.2% the increase in retail sales in October, the largest leap in seven months, much of it due to the improving auto market of late
  • four number of consecutive months of retail improvements; this month’s jump more than doubled analyst expectations source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

11 Jun 2010 10:47

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Biz: Ah crap: After a solid streak of retail increases, sales go down

  • +0.6% the increase in retail sales in April; that’s pretty good
  • -1.2% the decrease in retail sales in May; that’s really bad
  • sevennumber of months of increases before May’s decrease source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

28 May 2010 10:57

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Biz: Did consumer spending go up in April, guys?

  • NO but it didn’t go down, either;
    it stayed flat source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
 
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