Retail spending on e-commerce jumped 27% this holiday season as compared to last year, to a total of $27.5 billion for the period from November through December 17th, according to comScore. ComScore further reported that on four specific days during this period spending exceeded $900 million per day, including Green Monday on December 13th, when… Continue Reading
As major retailers compete for the hours and dollars of customers during the last pressured days of holiday shopping, some stores are staying open 24-hours-a-day; others are trying to help you identify if the store has what you want before you even get into the car. Best Buy, which lost many potential customers by promoting… Continue Reading
Bernard Madoff, who is serving a 150-year prison sentence for his multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme, will not attend the funeral of his son Mark. This is out of consideration for his son’s wife and children, according to attorney Ira Sorkin. Mark Madoff committed suicide on Saturday, two years to the day after his father’s arrest… Continue Reading
The Giving Pledge, a campaign initiated by Bill Gates and Warren Buffet earlier this year, had already seen Larry Ellison of Oracle and media moguls Ted Turner and Bary Diller join their group. Now, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and several other billionaires, including AOL co-founder Steve Chase, former Wall Street executive Michaele Milken, and investor… Continue Reading
Time Warner Inc. Chief Executive Jeff Bewkes announced Monday the possible institution of a new business model to keep pace with the evolution of the TV industry. At an investor conference in New York City, Mr. Bewkes said, that if HBO, his company’s leading cable network, becomes “overly hindered by having it only available to… Continue Reading
The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) announced on Friday the results of a survey indicating that small U.S. businesses had seen payroll increases last month. The November gain of .01 workers per firm depicts a very small change, but it nevertheless represents the first such growth for small businesses in two-and-a-half years. This survey’s… Continue Reading
A White House deficit-reduction commission has recommended mass layoffs of government workers – up to 200,000, or 10% of the workforce, by 2020, major cuts in military spending, and raising taxes and gasoline prices as the necessary components of a plan to reduce the U.S. national deficit. The 58-page document, termed “The Moment of Truth,”… Continue Reading
Online retailers saw significant sales success on the Monday after this year’s Thanksgiving. “Cyber Monday,” so named to both reflect and encourage the post-Thanksgiving boom in online shopping, may generate up to $1 billion in sales this year, according to a Jeffries analyst. This will reflect an increase from last year’s Cyber Monday sales of… Continue Reading
The day after Thanksgiving this year saw online sales increase by 15.9% over Black Friday 2009, according to Coremetrics, a web analytics technology provider that is part of IBM. E-retailer Buy.com reported a sales jump of 45%. In addition, ChannelAdvisor reported that its retailer client’s same-store sales increased by almost 35%, seeing particularly good results… Continue Reading
Higher income consumers have expressed greater optimism about their financial future but their lower income counterparts are still struggling. It is the goal of America’s retailers to attract both sectors to their holiday sale season, which begins on “Black Friday,” the day after Thanksgiving, this week. “It’s critical to get off to a good start… Continue Reading