Christmas gets German shoppers in spending mood: study
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After months in a slump, Germans have found a fresh taste for shopping, with Christmas giving the eurozone's biggest economy a boost, a survey by the GfK institute showed Thursday.
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Strong Christmas sales helped increase finance professionals' confidence in the sluggish German economy, a monthly survey showed Tuesday.
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Shopkeepers in Europe's biggest economy have a grin on their faces -- and not only because Santa is coming to town.Comment
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German consumers are seen being more confident in June, helped by better wages and job prospects, a survey finds.
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U.S. holiday shoppers continue to turn to the Internet when searching for presents for family and friends, according to data released Thursday by VeriSign.
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Consumers are breaking out their wallets on the brink of what should be a robust holiday shopping season, several reports suggested yesterday.
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Consumersâ attitudes on the economy in the run-up to Christmas made an unexpected jump as of the end of December, according to a survey released Thursday.
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German retail sales took an unexpected tumble in November, denting hopes for a noticeable pick-up in consumer spending in the eurozone's biggest economy, where chronically weak domestic demand remains the main ...
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Bargain hunters who could not wait till the traditional Boxing Day sales have been busy online during Christmas Day, retailers say.
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U.S. buyers shopped aggressively online on Monday and Tuesday of this week, spending significantly more than they did on the comparable days last year, according to comScore.Online retail spending hit $700 million on Monday, up 33 percent from last year, and $670 million on Tuesday, up 25 percent, the Web-monitoring company said Thursday.During the first 48 days of the holiday shopping season -- Nov. 1 to Dec. 18 -- U.S. shoppers have spent almost $25 billion in online retail purchases, up 19 percent from the same period last year, according to comScore.As Christmas day approaches, the intensity of online shopping will ease up, although late-shipping deals, in-store pickup options and price reductions should keep growth rates strong in the remainder of the holiday season, comScore said.The company expects online spending during the holidays to reach $29.5 billion, which would represent a 20 percent increase over the 2006 season.Meanwhile, Nielsen Online said Wednesday that a majority of online shoppers it surveyed reported being either &quot;very satisfied&quot; or &quot;somewhat satisfied&quot; with the customer support they received from online shopping Web sites.Nielsen Online&#39;s survey found that of the 46 percent of respondents who had posted or planned to post reviews about their online shopping experience, 88 percent said those reviews were, or would be, positive.Netflix topped the survey&#39;s customer satisfaction list, having been rated &quot;very satisfied&quot; by 90.3 percent of respondents, and was followed by comparison-shopping site NexTag.com (87 percent), giant e-tailer Amazon.com (86.6 percent), Yahoo Shopping (84.3 percent) and Kohls.com (84.1 percent). Rounding out the top 10 were Barnesandnoble.com, HomeDepot.com, Circuitcity.com, eBay.com, and JCPenney.com.On the other end of the spectrum, sites that in recent days have been flagged for buckling under the strong holiday-season traffic include Mastercard.com and Macys.com.Macys.com&#39;s home page faced slowdowns throughout Tuesday, taking, at its worst, about 38 seconds to load, compared with the usual 2 seconds, according to Web site uptime and availability tracker Gomez.Apparently, while experiencing availability problems, Macys.com has been serving up a page telling shoppers that the site is crowded and that they have to wait until traffic decreases in order to be let in. An apparent screenshot of this page was posted by The Consumerist blog on Tuesday.Meanwhile, Mastercard.com has racked up downtime of almost five hours between Nov. 9 and Dec. 20, equivalent to uptime of 99.5 percent for that period, according to Pingdom, which also tracks Web site performance. As such, Mastercard.com has performed significantly worse than sites from competing credit-card companies like Discover, Visa, Diners Club, and American Express, all of which have had uptime above 99.9 percent during this period, Pingdom said Thursday.Neither Macy&#39;s nor MasterCard immediately responded to requests for comment.
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A rosier economic outlook will boost  U.S. holiday spending by up to 5 percent this year despite a  firm resolution by many consumers to spend less, a consumer  group said on Monday.
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In fact, more than half of people in a recent survey (51 percent) said they&#39;d done holiday gift shopping while on vacation, spending an average of $2,000.
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US consumers cheered up in early December, sending potentially good news to retailers during the crucial holiday shopping season, a report showed on Friday.
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As post-Christmas retail results began trickling in yesterday, this much became clear about the 2004 holiday shopping season: Consumers procrastinated; they gobbled up gift cards; they defected, in greater numbers, from stores to the Web; and, overall, they appeared to spend more this year than last.
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German consumers are increasingly optimistic, despite a steep rise in sales tax at the start of the year, a poll of consumer attitudes in the biggest eurozone economy showed on Friday.
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More online shoppers are happy with their Web-buying experiences this year, according to Foresee Results --  and holiday spending on the Web is up 19% over 2006 levels.
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Online shopping has become hugely popular among Britons in the run-up to Christmas, research suggests.