[NYTr] Not Buying It: Worst Retail Holiday Season in 5 Years

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Bloomberg - Dec 24, 2007
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=akA3fuMs_s3g&refer=home

Retail Sales Fell for Fourth Week, ShopperTrak Says

By Joseph Galante

Dec. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Sales at U.S. stores fell for the fourth
straight week as rising fuel and food prices threatened to hand
retailers their worst holiday shopping season in five years.

Spending fell 2.2 percent for the week through Dec. 22 from a year
earlier, Chicago-based ShopperTrak RCT Corp. said in a statement today.
Discounter Target Corp. said separately that sales at stores open at
least a year may decline in December after customer visits slowed
following the Thanksgiving holiday.

A 7.6 percent increase on the Saturday before Christmas wasn't enough
to lift retailers' revenue last week as shoppers grapple with
$3-a-gallon gasoline and a deepening housing slump. This year's holiday
shopping season may grow at the slowest pace since 2002 as stores
struggle to recapture the gains they saw on the Friday after
Thanksgiving

``After a huge start of Black Friday, the consumers have never been
excited since then to shop,'' Britt Beemer, chairman of America's
Research Group, said in a Bloomberg Radio interview. ``The deals
haven't gotten any better.''

Sales rose 19 percent over the weekend from Dec. 21 to Dec. 23,
ShopperTrak said.

``Last-minute shoppers swamped the stores on the weekend,'' Bill
Martin, co-founder of ShopperTrak, said in a statement.

Internet Sales

U.S. Internet sales have risen at the slowest pace on record as
discounts cut revenue in the final days of the holiday shopping season.

Online spending from Nov. 1 through Dec. 21 increased 19 percent from
the same period a year earlier to $26.3 billion, Reston, Virginia-based
ComScore Inc. said Dec. 23. Sales trailed last year's 26 percent growth
and the research firm's forecast for a 20 percent gain during this
year's holidays.

The National Retail Federation in Washington has said that sales may
rise 4 percent this November and December, the smallest gain in five
years. ShopperTrak has predicted a 3.6 percent increase.

Although customer visits increased for the week ended Dec. 22, ``this
increase was not sufficient to compensate for the unfavorable traffic
trends that carried over into December from the week following
Thanksgiving,'' Target said on a recorded call.