A final burst of spending retailers hoped for last weekend never came.
Shopper traffic fell 27%% compared with the same time last year...
..."This will go down as the one of the worst holiday sales seasons on
record," said Mary Delk, a director in the retail practice at consulting
firm Deloitte LLP. "Retailers went from 'Ho-ho' to 'Uh-oh' to 'Oh-no.'"
The holiday retail-sales decline was much worse than the already-dire
picture painted by industry forecasts, which had predicted sales ranging
from a 1%% drop to a more optimistic increase of 2.2%%.
Luxury goods, once considered immune from economic turmoil, were hardest
hit, with sales falling 21.2%%, compared with a jump of 7.5%% a year ago,
when the economy had just begun to sputter. Including jewelry sales, the
luxury sector plunged by a whopping 34.5%%.
SEE CHART OF SALES DROP:
http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/P1-AO101A_RETAI_NS_20081225220014.gif