By Maxine Shapiro, KERA 90.1 business commentator
Dallas, TX – Assessing the retail world used to be an easy task. It was quite routine; bricks and mortar, catalogues, and that was it. Enter the Internet and this insipidness has vanished. I'm Maxine Shapiro with KERA Marketplace Midday.
Could you ever imagine a town being sold on eBay? That's right. At 12 noon on Friday, the bidding for Bridgeville, California closed at nearly $1.8 million. Bidding for the Northern California 82-acre town began a month earlier at a little over $700,000. There's a lot of red tape that will need to be addressed, off the Internet, for the deal to be finalized. But what a first!
While some other retailers like Wal-Mart and Federated (the owners of Macy's and Bloomingdale's) are singing the blues this December, eBay's listings were up 52% from last year. Expectations were for only a 38% increase. Amazon.com gleefully announced this was their "busiest holiday season ever." More than 56 million items were ordered worldwide between November 1st and December 23rd. Remember, Amazon is not just about books anymore. There are clothes and CD's and videos and gadgets and more gadgets at, as a spokesperson for Amazon barked, "the lowest prices ever." I actually ordered two books less than a week before Christmas (couldn't find 'em anyplace else) and they arrived Christmas Eve, with free shipping.
But the Internet is not the only variable added to this retail scramble. Gift certificates and gift cards have their own spotlight. In 2000, all retailers agreed to a new accounting rule - gift card and/or certificate sales cannot be posted until redeemed. So post-holiday shopping has taken on a life of its own. In fact, many retailers see this time eclipsing that weekend after Thanksgiving - especially this year when that nasty old calendar cut the season short by a week. But take heed, you bricks and mortar retailers - online gift cards and certificates were up 64% from last year.
For KERA Marketplace Midday, I'm Maxine Shapiro.
Marketplace Midday Reports air on KERA 90.1 Monday - Friday at 1:04 p.m. To contact Maxine Shapiro, please send emails to mshapiro@kera.org.