Retail Bouncing Back?
Retail may be bouncing back. Best Buy, North America's number one electronics chain, reported an 18% gain in total sales for its third quarter ended November 29. The Richfield, MN–based operation posted $6.03 billion in total sales, with same-store sales up 8.6%.
Retail Roundup
Wiz stores in bankruptcy: Only a week after being acquired from Cablevision by GBO Electronics Acquisition LLC, The Wiz stores initiated a bankruptcy petition in the District of Delaware to "maximize company assets," according to a March 14 press release from TW Inc., as The Wiz is now known. The 17-store electronics chain is seeking protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of US bankruptcy law and approval to conduct going-out-of-business sales at its stores in the New York metro area.
Retail Roundup
IPOs are jumping and the Nasdaq is up—some mid-summer economic indicators point toward a recovery, but you wouldn't know it from retail reports. Circuit City, Good Guys, and Harvey Electronics are singing the blues, while discounter Costco is whistling all the way to the bank.
Retail Sales Sluggish
Electronics retailers typically depend on the winter holiday shopping season to boost their year-end bottom lines. The hoped-for buying surge apparently hasn't happened in 2002, since Best Buy and Circuit City are both projecting slow sales.
Retailer Best Buy Soars in Wake of Expansion
Call it the comeback kid. Only a year ago, electronics retailer Best Buy Company was on the brink of disaster. Reeling from rapid expansion---34 new stores in two years---and suffering from an industry-wide sales slump, the retailer was said to be close to defaulting on some large-scale loans. Customers were being offered no-interest long-term credit as an inducement to buy anything on the sales floor.
Retailing on the Rise?
Electronics retailers may be bouncing back from a long slump, according to a couple of recent reports.
Retailing Roundup
The US economy took a severe downturn last year following the terrorist attacks of September 11, and this year has been hit by the stock market's decline in the wake of the accounting scandal–fueled collapse of Enron and WorldCom, Inc. Electronics retailers have ridden out the slump fairly well, buoyed by a consumer trend toward "cocooning," or putting their disposable income into their homes. For most retailers, the popularity of DVD and home theater has offset diminishing sales of stand-alone audio.
Retailing: Good Present, Bright Future
Some ultra-high-end two-channel specialists may still be singing the blues, but others in the electronics retailing business are humming happier tunes.
Retailing: Mixed Results
Is retailing headed up or down? North America's two largest electronics retailers have reported vastly different results for the second quarter.
Retailing: Mixed Results
The last months of 2002 were uneven ones for electronics retailers. American consumers, apparently trying to stretch their home entertainment dollars as far as possible, patronized discount stores while bypassing more upscale competitors.