Holiday Shopping Season, Retail Holiday Sales | featured news

Best Buy's holiday sales fell despite a surprisingly resilient showing in the U.S., and the consumer-electronics retailer said its cash flow continues to weaken.

Retail sales barely rose in December, but the gain was enough to lift sales to a record level for 2011. It marked the largest annual increase in more than a decade. Sales inched up 0.1 percent in December to a seasonally adjusted $400.6 billion, The Commerce Department said Thursday. It was the second straight month that sales have topped $400 billion. Never before had monthly sales reached that level.

Electronics retailer Best Buy reported a 1.2% drop in December same-store sales on slow customer traffic and weakness in the gaming and digital-imaging segments.

A blizzard in the Northeast this weekend postponed about $1 billion in holiday retail sales by keeping shoppers out of stores in the days after Christmas, research firm ShopperTrak said on Wednesday.

U.S. retailers performed better during the key holiday shopping season this year after a historically dismal 2008, performing in line with dampened expectations, according to data released on Monday.