We will be seeing promotions significantly above the current 30 percent off, which are the opening t

Wal-Mart Stores is dangling a 32-inch flat-screen TV for $98, down from $148 last year. Sears has waived layaway fees, and its Kmart chain is introducing a rent-to-own dollar rent a car discounts program. More than a dozen retailers are opening earlier, or for the first time, on Thanksgiving Day. Among the attention-grabbing stunts: a $1 million jackpot for one of the first shoppers to visit Gap Inc. s Old Navy chain on Black Friday.
Faced with wary shoppers and a shorter holiday season, retailers are piling on deals as they jockey for market share during the most important sales period of the year. For the fourth year in a row, disposable incomes in 2013 have only inched up. As result, low-income Americans will again have a less-merry season than affluent consumers, who are more flush thanks in part to a 26 percent rise in the Standard & Poor s 500 Index this year.
We will be seeing promotions significantly above the current 30 percent off, which are the opening table stakes, said Craig Johnson, president of Customer Growth dollar rent a car discounts Partners, a New Canaan, Conn.-based consulting firm. Stores have too much inventory, dollar rent a car discounts which doesn t bode well for 2014.
U.S. retail sales excluding autos and gasoline grew 0.2 percent in October, half the month-earlier gain, according to the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The Commerce Department will release those figures dollar rent a car discounts Wednesday.
With shoppers expected to visit fewer stores this holiday, sales are projected to advance 2.4 percent, the smallest increase since the year the recession ended, according to ShopperTrak, a Chicago-based researcher. Sales from Black Friday through Cyber Monday are projected to rise 2.2 percent dollar rent a car discounts year- over-year, researcher IBISWorld said Tuesday.
The deep discounts will crimp retailers bottom line. Macy s Inc., which has added doorbusters and deals of the day, warned that profitability will come under pressure in the fourth quarter. Analysts dollar rent a car discounts on average estimate that Macy s gross margin, or earnings left after subtracting the cost of goods, will shrink to 40.3 percent this holiday quarter, having eroded each year since 2010, the last year it widened.
This year will be the worst and most promotional shopping season for specialty apparel and department-store chains since 2008, Morgan Stanley retail analysts predicted in an Oct. 31 report, blaming low consumer confidence.
The consumer is more deal-driven dollar rent a car discounts than ever, Ken Perkins, president of researcher Retail dollar rent a car discounts Metrics LLC, wrote in a Nov. 14 note. Discretionary dollars for holiday spending are limited for the large pool of lower- and moderate-income consumers due to lack of wage gains this year coupled with the increased payroll tax.
J.C. Penney Co., struggling to turn itself around after a failed attempt to move upmarket, will offer extremely deep discounts early in the season, which will put pressure on other retailers to do the same, the Morgan Stanley analysts said. The six-fewer shopping days this year also could make the chains push the promotional panic button' earlier than needed, dollar rent a car discounts putting their margins at risk, they said.
The National Retail Federation, a Washington-based trade group, is more upbeat dollar rent a car discounts than ShopperTrak. It has forecast that U.S. retail sales may increase 3.9 percent during the holiday dollar rent a car discounts season. That increase would be slightly higher than last year s 3.5 percent gain.
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The Charlotte dollar rent a car discounts Observer welcomes your comments on news of the day. The more voices engaged in conversation, the better for us all, but do keep it civil. Please refrain from profanity, obscenity, spam, name-calling or attacking others for their views.
Have a news tip? You can send it to a local news editor; email local@charlotteobserver.com to send us your tip - or - consider joining the Public Insight Network and become a source for The Charlotte Observer. Read more Read less
The Charlotte region is vast and diverse. The more voices engaged in conversation, the better for us all. The Charlotte Observer welcomes your comments on news of the day, but we ask that you keep the discourse civil.
You can help: Notify us of violations by hitting the "Report Abuse" link. Users who continue posting comments that violate these guidelines may, at our discretion, be blocked from submitting future comments as well.