BTW News Briefs

Putnam Book Center Closes

Westchester County, New York's The Journal News reported on December 29 that the Putnam Book Center in Carmel, New York, would be closing on January 31, when its 10-year lease expires. According to the paper, the store's owner, Hank Jones, was closing the 3,000-square-foot store, which had seen business increase each year, to move to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where Jones plans to launch an Internet business offering booksellers information on major book reviews, book publicity, and other industry news.

Putnam Book Center's closing leaves Putnam County with only one bookstore, Salmagundi Books in Cold Spring, according to the Journal News, which noted, "Chain retailers have seemed to ignore the third-fastest growing county in New York for locations in Westchester and Dutchess counties and Connecticut -- leaving the local marketplace free of discounters."

Holiday Season Most Successful Yet for E-tailers

According to a December 29 article in the New York Times, preliminary reports indicate that online retailers had "a stellar holiday season" that "will go down as the most successful yet for e-commerce, in terms of sales and profits." Although, the Times warned, analysts believe that profits might be "harder to come by in 2004."

The Times reported that, according to BizRate, a shopping comparison and research firm, computer hardware products, digital cameras and other electronics, movies and CDs, and clothes and toys were the top items bought by online customers.

Among 1.5 million Internet users tracked by ComScore Networks, "e-commerce sales reached $11.72 billion from November 1 to December 26, a 29 percent jump from $9.08 billion in the same period in 2002," according to the Times.

Although the numbers could change slightly when the final figures are in, the Times reported that according to ComScore "as of December 26, year-to-date sales -- excluding travel and auctions -- reached $51.51 billion, up roughly 22 percent from $42.37 billion in the same period a year earlier."

NRF Reports Holiday Sales Look Strong

In a December 30 news release, the National Retail Federation (NRF) continued to predict that holiday sales would show an increase of 5.7 percent over last year. NRF President and CEO Tracy Mullin, said, "This has clearly been a much stronger holiday season than last year. Consumers have not only shown that they are ready to spend, but it appears they are spreading their spending more equally among diverse retail segments. This is a great sign for the industry."

NRF reported that its Retail Sector Performance Index, which measures retailers' evaluations of monthly sales, customer traffic, the average transaction per customer, employment, inventories, and a six-month-ahead sales outlook expectation, "grew at a faster pace in December (56.2 percent) than the previous month (52.1 percent) and was 12.0 percentage points above its year-to-year value.

"The December Current Demand Index (average of sales and traffic) rose at a faster pace than the prior month (57.3 percent versus 53.1 percent) and was 15.2 percentage points higher year-over-year. Sales (59.4 percent) and customer traffic (56.3 percent) showed strong gains in December leaving retailers optimistic about a healthy holiday season."

According to NRF, "retailers are showing a great deal of confidence that the current sales environment will continue into the next year. The December Demand Outlook Index (a six-month outlook for sales) stood at 62.5 percent, a solid increase from last month's reading of 53.1 percent."