retail

Normally during this time of year we stuff stockings; however, Sony has decided to stuff a box. According to Kotaku.com, there will be a new PlayStation 3 bundle just in time for the holidays. This box will include the 80GB PS3 console, accompanied by the Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction and Casino Royale on Blu-ray, all this while maintaining its $400 price tag.

A Best Buy employee provided this information to Kotaku.com. It's expected to go on sale this week, just in time for Black Friday. Whether it's a Best Buy exclusive has yet … Read more

Apple may be planning to shuffle its retail staffing plans in advance of what is expected to be a rough couple of months for the economy.

AppleInsider reports that the company's retail arm, which added 8,000 workers during the last year, is taking a few steps to reduce costs without laying off any employees.

According to the report, Apple is telling its part-time workers that they will be getting fewer hours for the foreseeable future, while full-time workers are going to be asked to do more.

Apple's retail operation uses a fair amount of part-time "Specialists&… Read more

Update, Monday 7:08 a.m. PST: Added information on Wal-Mart's Black Friday deals.

Usually Black Friday is a good time of year for consumers and retailers. It's when retailers get "in the black" by getting rid of a lot of excess inventory through offering drastic discounts.

This year is different. The economy has crumbled, consumers plan on spending less, and at least for those shopping for electronics, there are fewer viable options with many Circuit City stores set to close.

Some bargain hunters have complained that, so far, they haven't seen as many great … Read more

Yahoo has sold its European comparison-shopping site Kelkoo to private-equity investors, according to a TechCrunch report.

Yahoo, which acquired Kelkoo for approximately 475 million euros ($579 million) four years ago, reportedly sold its wholly owned subsidiary for less than 100 million euros to U.K. private-equity firm Jamplant this holiday shopping season.

In a copy of an e-mail obtained by TechCrunch, Glen Drury, Kelkoo's managing director for the United Kingdom, had this to say about the organization's sale and rumors about its future. The "Toby" he mentions is apparently Toby Coppel, who heads up Europe for … Read more

Consumer spending on e-commerce sites grew just 1 percent during October compared with the same month a year ago, according to ComScore.

In fact, last month was the worst growth month for online retail spending since ComScore began keeping track in 2001.

Rising prices and unemployment rates, and the psychological impact of the chaos of the financial markets are to blame, according to ComScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni.

But the dip in spending can't be too much of a shock to those who watch ComScore's monthly reports carefully. The preceding six months featured declining growth rates--April saw 15 percent … Read more

Update at 2:17 p.m. PST, with comments from Microsoft on fate of Windows Marketplace.

Microsoft is doubling down on retail, with the launch of a second online store at the start of this year's especially critical holiday shopping season.

The Microsoft Store, which opened for business Thursday, is designed to carry the largest and most up-to-date selection of the software giant's product lines, such as Office, Windows, Xbox, and Zune.

The one-stop shop will carry Microsoft hardware too.

Microsoft currently operates its Windows Marketplace e-commerce site, which it began testing in 2004.

There are many similarities … Read more

Best Buy lowered its fiscal-year earnings forecast on Wednesday, citing fears that consumers will keep their wallets under lock and key during the holiday-shopping season.

Best Buy, which saw its archrival Circuit City file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Tuesday, said uncertainty surrounding consumer spending has made it difficult to project revenue for the rest of fiscal 2009, which ends February 28, 2009.

Uncertainty usually scares investors, who pushed Best Buy's shares down a steep 10.85 percent to $21.29 a share in early morning trading.

Best Buy CEO Brad Anderson sized up the current situation with this … Read more

Why is it so hard for everyone discussing Circuit City's Chapter 11 filing and New York Stock Exchange stock suspension to tell the world what really happened with this company?

No, Circuit City isn't dying because of the credit crunch, and there's no way we can blame its demise on the preferential treatment competitors like Best Buy are receiving. And we certainly can't blame it on the online-retail industry.

For some reason, every story I see written about the topic gives the company line--Circuit City is forced to file for Chapter 11 protection because of the "tight credit market"--and yet no one tells it like it really is: Circuit City is dying today, and will be a mere memory in just a few short months, because the company's executives ran the business into the ground.

Some believe that with the online onslaught being what it is, there's really only room for one major electronics retailer in the brick-and-mortar space. Anyone who believes that has no grip on reality.

There is room for multiple big-box electronics retailers. If Circuit City executives established a business model that competed with Best Buy's instead of trying to copy it, none of this would have ever happened, and we would be wondering which retailer will have the better holiday shopping season.

Instead, we're digging Circuit City's hole.… Read more

One of the hottest products in consumer electronics is finally cooling off.

A report released Tuesday confirms that flat-panel television shipments to retailers are beginning to tail off. Specifically, LCD and plasma TV shipment grew just 21 percent, and 20 percent, respectively year over year during the third quarter of 2008, according to DisplaySearch's Quarterly Global TV Shipment and Forecast Report.

That's by far the most meager growth for this category in the past two years. The previous six quarters' growth have all exceeded 41 percent compared to the previous year.

We're on the brink of a … Read more