Some Germans Seek to Shop 24 Hours a Day
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Germany's state governments will this week ask parliament for the freedom to further extend shop-opening hours, long seen as one of the most visible symbols of the heavy regulation of the country's economy.
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Where the shoppers are and what they're finding.
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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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Hans Seitz has sold engraved pewter plates and cuckoo clocks to U.S. soldiers for years. Now he fears some of his best customers may be going if two U.S. divisions pull out of Germany.
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MUNICH  - For the first time in recent memory, Germans spent less time in front of their TVs in 2007 than they did the year before, according to a new survey.
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One city experiments with providing water 24 hours a day - a rarity in this country.
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Two of Europe's biggest car-makers, Volkswagen and Opel, will this week open the latest front in German industry's battle to slash costs, secure longer working hours and impose more flexible conditions -- or ...
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Retailers expect the day after Boxing Day to be busier as bargain hunters continue the chase for cut-price items.
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Many online merchants this year will still sell goods with standard shipping terms through Monday, Dec. 18, or Tuesday, Dec. 19, a boon for late holiday shoppers.
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Most adopt wait-and-see attitude as they await more details of historic retailing deal. By Francis X. Donnelly / The Detroit News.
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When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.
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Merchants who spent the past few weeks hoping shoppers would splurge on gifts opened their doors Sunday with high hopes people would now spend on themselves.
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During much of Germany's postwar economic boom, as prosperity mounted and car sales multiplied, workers at the Opel automobile factory here became accustomed to getting their way: six weeks of vacation, a ...
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Their earnings don't stretch as far for family overseas, so many are working extra hours.
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Online retailers don't own Mondays anymore.
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Business & money: Large queues and pre-dawn scuffles as prospect of cut-price clothes lures bargain-seekers to Oxford Street
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Postmidnight buyers -- who include insomniacs, night owls and people who like to work late -- seem to be taking advantage of high-speed Internet access in the home.