Shopping, Retailer | featured news

In an unexpected twist, TVs are topping many Christmas shopping lists this year. Wal-Mart says TVs are among the top gifts people are putting on layaway at its 3,000-plus U.S. stores during the holiday season. The Westinghouse 46-inch LCD HDTV that was on sale for half off at Target for $298 was a top seller during the start to the season last weekend. And Abt Electronics already has sold out of 55-inch Samsung LED TVs that were marked down by half to $1,099.

With the intensity of Black Friday shopping starting to fade, store chains know they are under pressure to keep the sales momentum going as they enter the next phase of a competitive holiday shopping season.

It looks like we’re headed into another not-so-jolly holiday shopping season. According to the latest Consumer Reports Holiday Shopping Poll out today, only a third of those surveyed expect to be happier this holiday season than last.

The Kindle Fire tablet may be the hottest selling gadget this holiday, pressuring Amazon.com Inc's profit margins but giving the world's largest Internet retailer potentially millions of new high-spending customers.

Retailers are so desperate this holiday season that they're willing to lose money to get you to spend yours....

Almost two-thirds of U.S. shoppers plan to spend the same or less this back-to-school season as last year, a survey showed, in an early sign that retailers may not obtain a huge boost from the second-biggest selling season of the year.

Snowstorms have deterred shoppers at after Christmas sales in America's northeast, while retailers in the rest of the country are anticipating the highest sales in three years.

Retail sales were solidly higher in November, the government reported Tuesday, fueled in part by deep discounting on holiday merchandise.

U.S. online retail sales through the first 40 days of the 2010 holiday shopping season are up 12% from a year ago, according to a Sunday update from ComScore.