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Early results suggest a weak holiday season for retailers, with MasterCard's SpendingPulse...

  • Wednesday, December 26, 2012, 7:20 AM ET
    Early results suggest a weak holiday season for retailers, with MasterCard's SpendingPulse reporting sales just 0.7% higher than a year ago. "It's a lost season," says the group's Michael McNamera. Not too surprising, major discounting was common in the days leading up to the holiday, and even greater bargains are expected after.
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This news story has 5 comments:

  •  
    Holiday season is still on. "It's a lost season". A .7 % increase over 2011 is not what I consider lost. Granted, sales at this time did not hit the 3-4% increase, however, a yoy loss would be negative growth.
    26 Dec 2012, 07:30 AM Reply Like
  •  
    It probably is a loss if you adjust for inflation.
    26 Dec 2012, 07:35 AM Reply Like
  •  
    OK, but it's still an overreaction to call it a "loss". Besides, it's also much more complicated than looking at the industry overall, projecting out a 0.7% increase (prone to significant revision), and not cherrypicking clear winners and losers, who skew the numbers either way. Sears and JC Penney no doubt SUCKED, but Macy's and Walmart probably rocked. Finally, these businesses continue to suck costs out of their models, and the e-commerce transactions are probably offsetting weaknesses at stores (broadly).
    26 Dec 2012, 09:59 AM Reply Like
  •  
    Growth cannot continue forever. The sooner these idiots figure this out the sooner we can get on with a new economic and financial system.
    26 Dec 2012, 11:05 AM Reply Like
  •  
    Ya. Right. "New economic and financial system." A-ha.
    26 Dec 2012, 02:23 PM Reply Like
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