Retailers Usher In Post-Christmas Business

AP:

Retailers ushered in the post-Christmas shopping season Wednesday by opening earlier than ever and slashing prices, with hopes that bargain hunters and gift-card splurgers will prop up what has so far been an unimpressive showing by consumers.

Target Corp. warned late Monday that its sales at established stores might decline for December, while a broad gauge of consumer spending released by Mastercard Inc., which includes estimates for spending by check and cash, showed an increase of 3.6 percent from Thanksgiving to Christmas, compared to a 6.6 percent gain in the year-ago period. Excluding gasoline and auto sales, that figure was a slim 2.4 percent gain.

Read the whole story: AP

Comments

[hootie1fan]

Most of the shoppers I know are wither cash spenders refusing to use credit to finance holiday gift giving or have already maxed out on credit and don't have anymore to use.

Eventually those bills have to pay and I refuse to accrue them in the first place.

[ljsfolly]

So much for the retailers and their endless sales that beat last weeks sales and almost as good as today's sales. Maybe retailers will survive maybe not when the economy is in the dumpster and people are shopping on the credit cards not on real money. But once the credit card is used the retailers doesn't have to worry about payment unless it's a store credit card. Not so many of those anymore. That the credit cards are/were out also signals the desperate people trying to save what's left of the old ways of spending as the house foreclosing and the car maybe getting repo'd this next month might hurt less if you have toys for the kids to play with in the next place you move to and the new outfit might just work for the new job interview. Who is going to save the economy?