CORRECTED: Target earnings boosted by holiday sales
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Corrects last paragraph to show 53.3 percent rise in credit card business was for the full year. Also includes the rise for the quarter.
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Those shopping at post-Christmas sales between 26 and 28 December has risen 2.1% on last year, says a retail analyst.
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Tiffany & Company reported a 23 percent increase in earnings yesterday on higher sales and it increased its profit forecast for the year because of expected holiday demand.
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(Corrects headline to show Web traffic growth, not Web sales, fell on Black Friday)
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The holiday shopping season ended better than it started, and most retailers are on track to meet humble sales goals, though many hope for an extra boost the week after Christmas as consumers cash in gift cards.
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Business & money: Retail sales rose by a stronger-than-expected 0.4% in November from October, but retailers had to again slash their prices to shift stock
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In NEW YORK item, please read headline as UPDATE 1-Franklin Resources in $20 million SEC settlement, not $21 million. A corrected version follows.
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(Corrects dollar amount in first paragraph from $10 million to $40 million)
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Online merchants are poised to record a much bigger rise in holiday sales than their offline counterparts. Broadband expansion, more luxury gift sales and a rise in late shoppers help the bottom line. By Joanna Glasner.
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Starbucks Corp. said strong sales of holiday drinks, gift cards and music helped boost quarterly earnings by 31 percent, and the coffee retailer raised its earnings forecast slightly for its current fiscal year.
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( in paragraph nine group sales in North America has been corrected to "slipped 0.5 percent to 530,630." In paragraph 10 the year has been corrected to 2009)
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Two leading retail stalwarts &#151; J.C. Penney Co. and discounter Target Corp. &#151; reported on Thursday better-than-expected profits in the second quarter. Still, the outlook for consumer spending in the coming months remains muddled amid higher energy costs, rising interest rates, war in the Middle East, and the latest terrorist threat.
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(Corrects to make clear GEâs operating profit matched analystsâ forecasts in second paragraph)
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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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November sales data raised retailers&#39; spirits Monday, as the government reported better results than expected after the holiday season had so far been viewed with some disappointment.
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Plus: Matsushita profit up 22 percent...Amazon's profit up, margins squeezed...SAP cautious on 2008...Yahoo profit falls.
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U.S. online retailers posted holiday sales of $23.2 billion, excluding travel, up a larger-than-expected 25 percent from the 2003 season, according to a new survey.