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Record sales for holiday weekend

Jose Orozco, 8, and his sister Crystal, 6, push a cartload of presents as they walk with their mother Adela Orozco after a day of shopping at the Citadel Outlets in Los Angeles, California, on Sunday. The three days after Thanksgiving are among the heaviest shopping days of the year in the US and mark the start of the Christmas holiday shopping season. PHOTO: AFP

US retailers recorded sales of US$27.8 billion over the holiday weekend, putting the industry on track for its second-biggest selling season since 1999, the National Retail Federation (NRF) said.

Total sales including online rose 22 percent from a year earlier, spurred by discounts and demand for electronics, the NRF said in a statement on Sunday.

Discounters attracted the most shoppers, the Washington-based trade group's survey found.

On Friday, Wal-Mart Stores Inc offered US$398 laptops and Best Buy Co 27-inch Magna televisions for US$122.99.

Price cuts are luring shoppers and may help retailers generate holiday sales growth of 6 percent this year, the NRF said. Americans spent an average US$302.81 during the weekend on gifts and items for themselves as well.

"It was a very good weekend," said Arun Daniel, an analyst with ING Investment Management in New York, which holds Wal-Mart shares among its US$40 billion in assets.

"It was not just Friday; it was strong throughout the weekend. I expect that to continue into December," he said.

The federation said 145 million shoppers went to stores and on the Internet, and an additional 59 million consumers were expected to shop online yesterday.

According to the NRF survey, 61 percent of shoppers headed to discounters. Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, said on Saturday that this month's comparable-store sales at its US outlets rose about 4.3 percent, helped by strong holiday sales.

Forty-seven percent of shoppers went to department stores and 41 percent to specialty stores, the federation said.

Almost one in three consumers chose to do some of their holiday shopping on the Internet.

"The deals were so enticing that many consumers abandoned their shopping lists and started buying for themselves," said Phil Rist, vice president of strategy for BIGresearch, which conducted the weekend survey for the federation.

The Standard & Poor's 500 Retailing Index, which doesn't include Wal-Mart, rose less than 1 percent on Saturday to 471.79.

It has gained 2.1 percent this year through Saturday.

In a separate statement on Sunday, Visa USA said retail spending on Visa credit and debit cards rose 11 percent to US$3.7 billion Friday and Saturday, led by purchases of electronics.

"These healthy numbers are a sign that consumers returned to the malls to shop on Saturday," Paul Cohen, spokesman for Visa USA, said in an interview on Sunday from San Francisco.

Gas prices have retreated from record highs in September, though they are still about 13 percent more than last year.

Consumers were shopping for a variety of merchandise, with the electronics category showing the largest year-over-year jump, the federation said. About 37 percent of shoppers bought in that category, up from 33 percent a year ago, it said.

The holiday selling season that starts on so-called Black Friday -- dubbed that because it's when many retailers were said to become profitable for the year -- contributes almost a quarter of US retailers' annual sales.
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