The Wall Street Journal is reporting on the dismal holiday retail sales, and the numbers are pretty much as bad as expected or worse:
Despite a flurry of last-minute shoppers lured by the deep discounts, total retail sales, excluding automobiles, fell over the year-earlier period by 5.5% in November and 8% in December through Christmas Eve, according to MasterCard Inc.'s SpendingPulse unit.
When gasoline sales are excluded, the fall in overall retail sales is more modest: a 2.5% drop in November and a 4% decline in December. A 40% drop in gasoline prices over the year-earlier period contributed to the sharp decline in total sales.
The Journal goes on to report that some sectors were hit particularly hard, including luxury goods - down 35% - and electronics/appliances - down 27%.
Amid all this doom and gloom, however, there is a silver lining for the IT industry. Online sales were down only 2%, meaning a lot of people have shifted their holiday buying to the Internet. Hopefully, companies will continue to invest in hardware and software for their web applications to better compete for online business.
