Holiday Shopping Season, Retail | featured news

Electronics retailer Best Buy reported a 1.2% drop in December same-store sales on slow customer traffic and weakness in the gaming and digital-imaging segments.

When top retailers post their December sales this week, Wall Street analysts are expecting them to report a healthy end to the holiday season, helped by discounts, improved consumer sentiment and tactics like extended hours and layaways.

Struggling Sears Holdings Co., which controls the Kmart and Sears chains, has posted a list of 79 stores that will be shuttered after a disappointing holiday season.

A mall trade group says that last minute shoppers gave merchants a solid lift during the final week before Christmas. Sales at stores opened at least a year rose 0.9 percent for the week ended Saturday compared with the previous week and was up 4.5 percent compared with the same period a year ago, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers-Goldman Sachs Weekly Chain Store Sales Index, released Wednesday.

Between 100 and 120 Sears and Kmart stores will be closed, the retailer said Tuesday, after terrible holiday sales during what is the most crucial time of the year for retailers.

Retailers saw their fair share of last-minute shoppers on Saturday, the day before Christmas, but stores were not super-busy, putting a moderate cap on pre-holiday season that started with a bang and has waned ever since.

The sales jump occurred in a crucial month for the industry, as gift buying surges in the weeks leading up to the holidays. Video game software sales rebounded in November, a crucial month for the industry as gift buying takes off in the weeks leading up to the holidays.

Retailers’ midnight openings last week brought in customers, most big chains said they were pleased with their Black Friday sales, and the November revenue increases at stores open at least a year came in just where analysts had expected, reports showed Thursday.

In an unexpected twist, TVs are topping many Christmas shopping lists this year. Wal-Mart says TVs are among the top gifts people are putting on layaway at its 3,000-plus U.S. stores during the holiday season. The Westinghouse 46-inch LCD HDTV that was on sale for half off at Target for $298 was a top seller during the start to the season last weekend. And Abt Electronics already has sold out of 55-inch Samsung LED TVs that were marked down by half to $1,099.

After years of being more hype than highlight, Cyber Monday appears on its way to its biggest outing ever. Last year, the Monday after Thanksgiving saw an estimated $1 billion spent online in the United States, making it the biggest e-sales day ever. And analysts said Monday that this year's "holiday" -- the online answer to the annual Black Friday bargain rush on stores -- is on pace to be bigger still.