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I don’t often take advantage of Black Friday deals, but I needed a set of tires, so I steeled myself for battle, and entered the hunt. The one thing most shops don’t advertise online is the country of origin (I wonder why), so I handled that part by phone. I called the shop, identified the deal I was looking for, and asked them to check the country of manufacture (as far as I’m concerned, USA would be nice, but I don’t want tires made in China). He put me on hold while he looked at the tire, and returned with...

MONTGOMERYVILLE, PA — Local dad Justin Simpson took a trip to the mall on Christmas Eve to begin his Christmas shopping, only to find a vacant lot where the mall once stood. "Oh man, I've been coming here forever," Simpson said. "I mean, it's been a few years, but I used to love getting malts at the Woolworth soda fountain. Then my mom would always make us buy some educational books over at Borders." A distraught Mr. Simpson had reportedly planned to shop for his entire family at the mall this year. "I figured I could get the older kids...

I'm smug because I've got my Christmas shopping done, other than some stocking stuffers. Share your stories here, whether you've braved it in person, or done your shopping at home, in your peejays.

My wife and I have decided that for this year's Christmas Shopping we will ONLY shop/buy at REAL Brick and Morter LOCAL(w/in 200 Miles) Establishment(s) and we will support local REAL people that we can see and talk too. Amazon and Amazon-like "shopping" just doesn't seen right anymore.

Macy’s says it is eliminating more than 10,000 jobs and plans to move forward with 68 store closures after a disappointing holiday shopping season. The department store chain also lowered its full-year earnings forecast. The retailer said Wednesday that sales at its established stores fell 2.1 percent in November and December compared to the same period last year. Macy’s Inc. pointed to changing consumer behavior and said its performance reflects the challenges that are facing much of the retail industry. As if to underscore that point, Kohl’s Corp. also reported disappointing holiday shopping numbers Wednesday. …

The threat of “Brexit” is delivering a Christmas bonanza to Northern Ireland, where the thousands visiting daily from the euro-using Republic of Ireland are finding bargains driven by the battered pound. In the malls of Newry, a Northern Ireland town barely 5 miles (8 kilometers) from the United Kingdom’s only land border with a European Union partner, the surge in cross-border holiday shopping underscores how far the British currency has fallen amid anxiety over the country’s promised EU exit. While the euro is unusually weak against the resurgent dollar, the pound is far weaker, boosting price differentials on most goods....

More than 50 million Americans have not even STARTED their Christmas shopping yet and nearly half the country hasn't finished Despite early retailer promotions meant to entice shoppers, 54 million Americans or or 17 percent have not started holiday shopping about a week before Christmas - one percentage point less than last year, a recent poll found. The Reuters/Ipsos poll, conducted between December 14 to 18, also found that less than a third of shoppers had completely finished their shopping. The pace of sales is crucial to retailers who receive a substantial portion of business during November and December.

An unexpected surge in online purchases is putting pressure on UPS and FedEx to get packages out on time this holiday season, and that could result in extra costs for retailers. Retailers like Target broke online-sales records on Thanksgiving Day and the following Monday this year after luring shoppers with discounts. Broadly, online sales from the long weekend totaled $11 billion this year, according to Adobe Digital Index.

Get ready for the next era in retail—one that will be characterized by far fewer shops and smaller stores. On Tuesday, Sears said that it will shutter its flagship store in downtown Chicago in April. It's the latest of about 300 store closures in the U.S. that Sears has made since 2010. The news follows announcements earlier this month of multiple store closings from major department stores J.C. Penney and Macy's. Further signs of cuts in the industry came Wednesday, when Target said that it will eliminate 475 jobs worldwide, including some at its Minnesota headquarters, and not fill 700...

"One way to illustrate your good fortune of being a holiday shopper today is to measure the cost of consumer goods by the number of hours it takes working at the average hourly wage to earn enough income to purchase typical consumer products at their retail prices, and then compare the “time cost” of goods from the past to today’s “time cost” for similar items.... consider the equipment with the “best stereo sound” that Sears had to offer in 1958, which was advertised for sale in its Christmas catalog for $84.95 (see picture above), boasting that “You’ll be amazed at...

I offer this Foolproof Christmas Shopping Strategy for Guys who need to get serious now that we have only two shopping weekends before Christmas. Guys have a natural aversion to shopping in general and malls in particular. Malls have millions of gift items on the shelves and this causes guys a massive problem when attempting to select that perfect gift for a significant other. I have analyzed this problem and have developed a solution that will work well for any guy regardless of budget or last minute time constraints. The strategy is based upon a category system. With millions of...

BANGOR, Maine — Canadian shoppers arrived early Thursday to get in line at Walmart and were surprised that the doors didn’t open until midnight. Maine has a law that bars big box stores from opening on Thanksgiving. “We thought it opened at 10 p.m.,” as advertised nationally, said Wanda Myers, a Saint John, New Brunswick, resident who arrived at the Brewer Walmart Supercenter at 6 a.m. Thursday and stood first in one of the store’s two lines. A convoy of Canadian shoppers drove 3½ hours to get to the Bangor area for Black Friday deals. “I was absolutely shocked” that...

First exploded a car at the busy shopping street Drottninggatan in central Stockholm. Then came another explosion some distance away and one man died. According to news agency TT, the man had blown himself to death. There was a bag on the ground filled with nails, according to newspaper Expressen. Alarm calls poured in to the Emergency Services from concerned residents about the explosions in central Stockholm on Saturday afternoon. But the initial info from the police was extremely unclear. First there was talk of two cars that exploded, later it proved to be just one... At Bryggargatan a man...

It’s here. Christmas, that wonderful time of year when toy manufacturers find out just how well their advertising dollars were spent, and parents have a chance to put their money where their hearts are. While the Left complains about our consumer-oriented society, and looks for books to indoctrinate their three-year olds, I have a better idea. How about buying toys that enrich children’s lives? It can be done. Not only can it be done, but in doing so, I can almost guarantee these items will be around, and still loved by next Christmas. Over the course of raising three boys...

I'm one of those smug bastards who has finished his Christmas shopping. Probably will not get the wrapping done until 'eve though. Love these knives:Warther Kitchen KnivesHe started making knives because he was a whittler.

Subprime-battered mortgage lenders are shutting down, fewer homes are being built, and even some of the big U.S. retailers are planning conservatively for Christmas holiday sales. It will take a few months to show up in the economic data that Wall Street and the Federal Reserve watch, but the slowing U.S. economy is hitting the job market, and economists say it is only a matter of time before unemployment ticks up. "Growth is skimming along at around 2 percent, and that is not strong enough to keep the unemployment rate from rising," said Brian Bethune, U.S. economist with Global Insight...

Top 10 Christmas Gifts for Conservatives in 2006 Posted Dec 15, 2006 10. 365 Manners Kids Should Know by Sheryl Eberly Why do today's children have such appallingly bad manners? One reason is that, for at least a generation, manners training in the home has been neglected; indeed, many parents have forgotten some basic rules of etiquette themselves. Now, Sheryl Eberly, a former White House aide to Nancy Reagan, gives parents an accessible plan for teaching (and learning!) good manners that begins in the home and covers every social situation and etiquette opportunity children will encounter. Far more than a...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. consumers spent 8.7 percent more during the just ended holiday shopping period than in the comparable period a year ago, according to a report from an affiliate of MasterCard Inc., the Wall Street Journal reported in its online edition on Monday. The study, by SpendingPulse, covered the period from the Friday after the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday through December 24, Christmas Eve. That period included 30 days in 2005, compared with 29 days in 2004. The report found the biggest increases in spending on home furnishings, up 15.2 percent, followed by consumer electronics and appliances, up...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. consumer spending rose 0.2 percent in October, as expected, driving the personal saving rate into negative territory for the fifth straight month, a government report showed on Thursday. Personal income also rose in October, by 0.4 percent - slightly less than the 0.5 percent increase forecast by Wall Street, the Commerce Department said. That followed an outsized 1.7 percent rise in income in September, which was driven by insurance payments in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The department's inflation measure - closely watched by policy-makers at the Federal Reserve - rose just 0.1 percent...

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Someone may have let the cat out of Wal-Mart's Black Friday bag early -- and it looks like the No. 1 retailer is ready to aggressively battle on prices in the weeks ahead by going very low on some hot products.And here's what to expect: A Hewlett-Packard Pavilion ze2308wm notebook computer for $398; an HP Photosmart E317 digital camera for $98.88; a Lexmark all-in-one printer, scanner and copier for $39.88; and a 12-cup coffeemaker, food chopper or 2 qt. slow cooker for just $4.24.Typically Wal-Mart (Research) and other retailers debut the eagerly awaited day-after-Thanksgiving specials a...