Cyber Monday

A big day for Internet retail firms, many of the companies posted sales increases over the prior period this time last year. Overstock, however, didn't post an increase in sales.

From an article on internet retailer:

At Overstock.com, sales fell 3% yesterday compared with the same Monday last year. “Last year Cyber Monday was in November. In November we had gunned marketing, which gave us a bigger November than we should have had, and a weaker December,” says CEO Patrick Byrne. “So our expectation has been to have a hard time matching November’s days this year, but then to make up some ground in December.” read the rest of the article here.

How may this affect your forecast?

What other macro-economic factors may affect your forecast?

Tough times for retailers 2

This article provides further discussion of consumer sentiment and it's expected affect on retail sales. There are also forecasts for retail sales in this article. An interesting point I noticed in the article, is the effect of tighter credit on retail in the auto industry.

The consumer sentiment index published by Reuters and the University of Michigan can be found here.

Tough times for retailers

Today Best Buy announced an earnings warning, that is they projected that their earnings will be lower for the year, see the story "Worst. Buy. Ever."

The earnings warning is linked by management to changes in consumer sentiment, as fewer consumers appear willing to spend big recently.

In related news, the rival electronics retailer, Circuit City, had previously announced that it was entering into a Chapter 11 reorganization. This is likely to predict the end of the company, based on the statement of Credit Suisse analyst Gary Balter, who was quoted (in this article) as saying: "We have not seen a consumer electronic retailer successfully reorganize in Chapter 11 in our 24 years in this space."