Sales | featured news

Deep discounts and the warmest July weather in decades should help retail chains report a rise in monthly sales, with many expecting warehouse clubs and high-end chains to lead the way.

Online retailers experienced a sales surge Monday, capping off a holiday shopping week in which more Americans than ever decided to skip the mall. Early estimates indicated overall sales gains of between 15% and 21% for "Cyber Monday," compared to a year earlier.

A high-ranking Toyota executive says the auto company's North American sales spiked around 50 percent the first eight days of March as incentives helped lure customers.

For the first time in decades, the $11.1 billion bottled water industry is stuttering. Experts say one culprit in the decline is an environmental backlash taking hold across the U.S.

Sarah Palin appears well on her way to becoming a million-selling author. "Going Rogue" sold 700,000 copies – a number that includes pre-orders – in its first week of release, according to a publishing official close to the former Alaska governor. The official was not authorized to release the sales figure and asked not to be identified.
Palin's memoir came out Nov. 17 with a first printing of 1.5 million copies. On Friday, publisher HarperCollins announced that the printing would be increased to 2.5 million.

Microsoft says it is pleased with the demand for Windows 7 as it reports an 18% fall in quarterly profits.

Internet giant Yahoo sees its third quarter profits more than treble - despite sales falling by about 12% - as it slashed costs.

With the sale of the energy-trading unit to Occidental, Citigroup could potentially avoid controversy over the compensation of Andrew J. Hall, who ran the firm.

General Motors Co. said Friday it set a sales record in China in September and total sales for the first nine months of the year rose 55 percent to nearly 1.3 million vehicles.

An index measuring the expectations of 107 CEOs from among the nation's largest companies was at its highest level this year, with more than half expecting sales to grow in the next six months - but their outlook for capital spending remained stagnant, and 40 percent predicted more job cuts....