iPod Powers Holiday Sales

Elena
26 Dec, 2005
New York City

Hectic post-holiday shopping started early Monday morning as retailers offered discounts, extended shopping hours and fresh new merchandise, making effort to salvage holiday-season sales. Shoppers focused on the discounted holiday merchandise, from ornaments to sweaters. The world

POST-HOLIDAY SALES

U.S. shoppers rushed towards shopping malls on early Monday morning for post-Christmas deals with retailers offering discounts, expanded shopping hours and fresh new merchandise in an effort to salvage sales in a season that''s turning out to be only ho-hum.

As this year shoppers started their holiday shopping rather late, merchants are relying even more on the post-Christmas season, hoping that consumers will snap up discounted holiday leftovers as well as new regular-priced merchandise.

On Monday morning, shoppers focused on the discounted holiday merchandise, from ornaments to sweaters. In a bid to prop up profits and sales in the post-Christmas season, a growing number of stores such as Coach Inc., American Eagle Outfitters Inc. and Casual Male Big & Tall are showcasing some spring merchandise while KB Toys Inc. is pushing new items related to the ""King Kong"" movie.

The world’s biggest online retailer, Amazon.com Inc., said that global holiday sales set a record this year on demand for Apple Computer Inc.''s iPod music players, video games and jewelry. Overall, online sales in the U.S. are expected to jump 24% to about $19 billion in November and December as the convenience of Internet shopping and free shipping lure consumers.

Shoppers bought more than 108 million items between Nov. 1 and Christmas with clothing, electronics and toys being the most popular goods on the Web.

INTERNATIONAL MARKET NEWS

Most Asian-Pacific benchmarks were closed for the holiday. The Nikkei hit a five-year high of 1.04% to 16,107.67 on broad-based buying and acquisition activity, which boosted banking, retail ands textile stocks. China’s Shanghai Composite advanced 1%, Taiwan’s Weighted index gained 0.3%.

Indian stocks sharply dropped for a second straight session as investors consolidated positions ahead of the expiration of derivatives contracts and news that the government has no plans to sell its stake in Steel Authority of India Ltd. The 30-share BSE declined 1.85%.

OIL, METALS, CURRENCIES

World demand for crude oil from OPEC countries will decline about 27.8 million barrels a day in the second quarter of 2006, around two million bpd lower than current demand levels.In New York, light sweet crude for February delivery closed Friday at $58.43 a barrel.