Business

Chris Cantell Discusses Business: School expenses
by Claudia Sonea

Americans are still facing a rough time as gas and goods̢ۉ㢠prices keep on rising. The consumers' behavior is affecting severely the merchants and the sales toll is not that positive especially now that the beginning of school is forcing parents to open their wallets and spend.
Last year the beginning of school brought big time gains to retailers, but this year the expectations are not that high. June was a better-than-expected month with sales soaring 16.5 percent, in spite of the rising of the prices of merchandise and gasoline. That is much more than the 10.9 that analysts forecasted and makes some retailers to hope that July might pass through a similar situation and overcome analysts jinx, especially due to tax rebates that consumers receive starting May.
The basic products purchased by parents will be notebooks and jeans, maybe backpacks (if there aren't any siblings from whom to pass on) and pens. For consumers the good news is that retailers are having an aggressive campaign of discounts. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, already announced this weekend big discounts for school products.
This period is very important and comes next to the holiday season that was also marked by tighter credit, sluggish house market, gas prices at record heights. Retailers had to deal with consumers' hesitation to spend and the lack of money, thus many have filled bankruptcy like Steve & Barry's LLC, privately-held chain, did on Wednesday. Gap Inc. (reported a 7 percent decline) and Limited Brands Inc (9 percent decline) might also be in danger as people still avoid them. Up to this point UBS-International Council of Shopping Centers said sales rose 4.3 percent, but generally few have posted good results or expectations (Wall-Mart, Target Corp, Nemira, etc). Don't go away, more to come...



related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080710/ap_on_bi_ge/retail_sales;_ylt=Amkl_yrHhGeSt22qC3VrTECs0NUE

by Claudia Sonea for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

PocketNews is a new real-time news broadcaster delivering the latest and hottest news right to your pocket ! With global clients who want to be kept up to date, PocketNews is everyone's way of keeping in touch with the World.<br><br><font size=2>These news are original content from young talents around the world and are selected for you by Chris Cantell.</font><br>

posted by Lucia Adamova

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posted by Blog TechSource @ 12:10 PM