Holiday Shopping, 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.

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.