Shops rake in billions over holiday
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Just about the last place Mariano Aguirre wanted to be Sunday was Macy&#39;s in Herald Square. But the Washington Heights resident knew he had little choice but to brave the busy aisles.
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Holiday shoppers were not spending as freely as expected, causing worry for many economists and investors.
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Holiday shopping got off to a flying  start in the United States this weekend.
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Gift cards are hot items this holiday season -- both at stores and in the courts.
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Tempted by lower prices and a wide selection of goods, U.S. shoppers clamored to the Web this holiday season, spending $23.2 billion, or 25 percent more than in the previous year, according to a survey released this week.
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US retailers are hiring at least an extra 800,000 people to chip in during the holidays, up from 635,900 in 2002, industry data show.
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Retail sales have risen sharply in the run-up to the key Christmas season, adding to data which suggests the economy is gathering pace and interest rates may rise next year.
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Britons are set to spend a total of  Â£97.3bn on holidays this year, a survey by Axa Insurance suggests.
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Ten posh possessions worthy of your year-end dough.
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U.S. online retailers rang up holiday sales of $23.2B between Nov. 1 and Dec. 26, up 25% from the same period in 2003, according to a survey released today by Goldman Sachs, Harris Interactive and Nielsen/NetRatings.
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Excel exhibition centre rings with the jingling of the toy industry some 328 shopping days before Christmas
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LOS ANGELES - Billionaires and multimillionaires are browsing for holiday gifts just like the rest of us, but the unbelievably rich are opening bulging wallets for dream presents that challenge the imagination.
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Travel: Gear up for a Christmas spending spree with a spot of online window shopping.
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Massachusetts bargain hunters showed up in droves and shopped hard on yesterday's sales tax holiday, buying everything from treadmills and snow blowers to candles and chandeliers, and crediting the 5-percent tax break with bringing them into the stores.
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Ask holiday shoppers what drives their choice of stores and you&#39;ll hear a variety of answers. But the subject of money is never far away.
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E-tailers have laggards and penny-pinchers to thank for last week&#39;s brisk sales, which grew 25 percent over the comparable period last year, according to comScore.Procrastinators and deal-seekers helped create a &quot;flurry&quot; of online spending last week in the U.S., keeping retail e-sales strong, comScore said Sunday.Between Nov. 1 and Dec. 21 -- the first 51 days of the holiday season -- U.S. shoppers have spent $26.3 billion online, up 19 percent compared with the corresponding period last year.So far, the heaviest online shopping day this season was Dec. 10, the so-called &quot;Green Monday,&quot; a term coined by eBay for the second Monday in December, which the vendor has identified as particularly heavy e-sales day. U.S. shoppers spent $881 million that day, up 33 percent from the corresponding day in 2006.By contrast, Cyber Monday, the first workday after the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S., ranks as this holiday season&#39;s ninth heaviest online shopping day, with $733 million in sales. Cyber Monday is considered the day when holiday online shopping kicks into high gear.Overall, comScore expects this year&#39;s holiday season to generate about $29.5 billion in online spending, which would represent a 20 percent increase from the same period in 2006.
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Online holiday shoppers this year are making cash registers jingle and meeting analysts&#39; expectations as they spent $8.8 billion in November, researchers said Monday.