Late spending spree helps Europe's retailers
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Europe's retailers showed tentative signs on Wednesday of having overcome bleak expectations for consumer spending in the run-up to Christmas, even as high street retail stocks in the US tumbled on the back of disappointing performance.
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Businesses reined in spending on major purchases last month, a sign that corporate America is pulling back as the economy slows down.
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Business & money: Bargain-chasing shoppers force stores into heavy price discounting after slowest Christmas sales growth in three years
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Driven by Christmas shopping fever and growing hunger for material goods, Europeans in former communist states are putting aside a historic aversion to taking out loans as their spending habits change and a new generation of debtors takes root.
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Retailers benefited from a last-minute holiday shopping spree, putting them on track to meet modest seasonal sales goals, two groups that track consumer spending reported Tuesday.
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Amazon.com, eBay and other retailers fell in U.S. trading as cash-strapped consumers limited their Internet holiday purchases while waiting for better bargains.
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Some hubs of cheap retail are struggling, but not all of them.
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Despite generous discounting and expanded shopping hours earlier in the season, many stores are finding themselves in the same predicament as in recent years: waiting for those last-minute shoppers in the final days before Christmas who seem to be procrastinating even more than a year ago.
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Retailers in the countries using the euro saw sales slip in November despite expectations for an increase in the run-up to the key holiday season, official EU data released Tuesday showed.
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It pays to get up early in a country where even the most basic goods are disappearing from shop shelves.
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NEW YORK -- Consumers returned to the malls in August for a late back-to-school buying spree, helping many retailers rebound from July's sluggish pace. But analysts are still worried that the weakening housing market and higher food and gas prices will curtail shopping in the critical months ahead.
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Malls were open around the clock and stores came through with huge discounts - but the last weekend before Christmas didn't do the trick, analysts said.
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The nation's consumers, uninspired by this season's fashions and rattled by high gas prices and the weakening home market, shopped gingerly last month, extending the misery of retailers who have struggled with a spending slowdown since February.
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Christmas sales came in the nick of time, saving the holiday selling season for most merchants at the last minute.
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Retailers experience a big bump following five weeks of slow sales, according to a report.
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The big three in discount retailers look like a good bet in a slowing economy.
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A shopping spree before and after Christmas helped many of the nation's retailers meet their holiday sales goals, but heavy discounting to lure customers into the stores came at the expense of profits, Wall Street analysts believe.