Christmas season sales data in yet?

[darkstar]

I lurk LBN quite a bit, but never saw any post of definitve measures re: the '03 Festival of Consumption numbers. Did I just miss it? The "1,000 jobs in Dec/interest rates to hold" story got me thinking. . .

[auburnblu]

1. I think those were out a few weeks ago

The bump in sales was actually pretty decent and was for most major chains. I think it was viewed as good economic news so it didn't really help the ABB cause.

[Lars39]

2. Link for that?

[auburnblu]

3. Yahoo news has several links

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040108/bs_afp/us_economy_retail_040108225425

[junker]

4. Sorry but that info is wrong. A clear split was shown. High end retailers

high end retailers ended up with a very modest uptick at 3.4% overall with high fashion apparel and jewelry doing the best. Then the low end retailers sucked. All the discount houses including the rapist-of-earth Wal-Mart were down at the very bottom of their range of guidance or were below it.

And even more telling the average amount spent by those who usually spend under 1000 on gifts FELL 56%. Next two categories up fell by 43 and 49 per cent respectively.

Further sale 'momentum' eroded early enough in the selling silly season that temp retail hiring was at its worst level (adjusted for population) in 28 years (back to regan days).

So the economic beat continues to deteriorate. I do so hope that the disconnected, disassociated polibureau members who run the Bushies continue to believe the bullsheeit of their own hedonically 'adjusted' numbers so that they will continue to believe that JOBS are being created so fast you just can't count them critters. As long as they are a'fishin the river of denial, I see no reason to wise them up....not that it would do any good.


A pool among high tech workers here in PNW has May as the prefered month that will show MS laying off en masse. Next highest chosen month is June.

Sales for retail were abysmal up here in PNW. Local figures lead national ones down by 4 and 5 per cent.

[auburnblu]

5. Can you not read

Wal-mart guidance on sales was an expected increase of 3.3%. 4.3% is higher than 3.3%. In your view, is 4.3% lower than 3.3%??? And where is your link? hmmmmmmm.

By the way, don't ever vote for Hillary, she used to be on the board of Wal-Mart.

[auburnblu]

6. USA Today is just plain wrong aren't they

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/usatoday/20040109/bs_usatoday/lastminutesurgehelpsretailersseetheirbestholidayseasonsince99


Please, just because you want to be "enlightened" does not change the holiday sales data. Now if your challenge was based on questioning how the sales were accounted for, i.e. cooking the books, not recording any sales returns until January, then that's a plausible challenge.

Local sales lead national ones???

[BigDaddyLove]

7. I often wonder if just checking the 'big retailers' numbers.........

is an adequate way to judge whether or not people spent money this holiday season in light of how many people buy gifts via the internet.

I, for example bought probably 50-60% of my Christmas gifts online this year....I only went out to the stores when it became clear that time constraints would make it difficult to cover all of the bases if I didn't do so.

[auburnblu]

8. Internet sales are gaining by the year.

Ironic, now that the dot.com boom is long over, a lot of consumers are doing just what you're doing and buying a lot of their gifts on-line. I think I read where internet sales were up maybe 30% this year past holiday season over the prior one.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

10. Again, sales are coming from the lowest levels in 30 years

which is why many chains (FAO Schwartz, KB Toys to name a few) are filing for Chapter 11. And many of the internet sites I used to shop at have disappeared, with the exception of the Big Boys (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc).

[BigDaddyLove]

11. But that's what's cool about the Internet.............

you are not bound to only the 'Big Boys' like Amazon....you can get things made by much smaller outfits; heck, you can get DVD's and music right from the independent artists themselves. Some of the shopping I did online was done without ever going to Amazon or any other of the bigger presences out there.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

12. Me too-I try to patronize the small internet sites

just like I shop at my local stores and try not to shop at chains.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

9. December '02 was the worst retail season in 30 years so

if sales were up a few percentage points over last year, that's not exactly good news.

http://money.cnn.com/2002/12/26/news/companies/after_christmas/

On edit: that was like the Republicans claim that the 2003 3rd quarter was the largest quarter growth since 1998. What they don't tell you is that it would take 15 more quarters of that kind of growth to return us to Jan 2001 levels. And so goes the retail sector also.