Consumer Attitudes & Behavior

Minneapolis -- Best Buy Co. woes continue, as the electronics retailer reported Tuesday a loss of $10 million for the quarter ended Nov. 3, compared with net income of $156 million in the year-ago period. Results were hurt by restructuring charges and slowed sales.

Sales slid 4% to $10.75 billion, but met Wall Street expectations. Same-store sales dropped 4.3%.

Whiting, Ind. -- Survey results released Tuesday by CouponCabin.com revealed that that 47% of Cyber Monday shoppers will spend more money online that day than they will in-store the during the rest of the holiday season. The holiday has gone mobile as well. More than one-quarter (29%) of smartphone and tablet owners plan to shop online on Cyber Monday on their devices.

WILMINGTON, Del. — The retail industry is awash with forecasts and projections during the holidays, but a near real-time indicator from Chase reveals how shoppers are actually behaving.

New York -- Sixty percent of Americans plan to shop in stores or online over the Thanksgiving weekend – up from 51% in 2011, according to Deloitte’s pre-Thanksgiving survey.

Among these weekend shoppers, 63% plan to shop in stores on Black Friday and 23% plan to shop in stores on Thanksgiving day (up from 17% in last year’s survey). Shoppers expect spend an average of $286 over the holiday weekend – up 28% from the 2011 survey

The survey also indicates:

New York -- Importers and manufacturers who sell to America's major retailers continue to be optimistic regarding a strong fourth quarter and holiday shopping season, according to Capital Business Credit, a non-bank lender that services the retail sector.

New York -- Mobile devices will play a pivotal role this Thanksgiving as the holiday transforms into "Mobile Thursday," the day before Black Friday, according to a new online survey by Harris Interactive, conducted on behalf of Digitas, a digitally led, global integrated brand agency.

For a split second after the presidential election the victor and the vanquished struck a conciliatory tone on finding the balance between raising taxes and cutting spending. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. president and CEO Mike Duke wants the issue resolved as soon as possible.

Duke was among a group of business leaders in Washington earlier this week meeting with President Barack Obama and following the meeting Walmart released a statement expressing his views on the issue.

CINCINNATI — P&G Children’s Safe Drinking Water Program has won the 2012 Economist Social Innovation Award.

“As a Company, we are both honored by the recognition and inspired by our employees and global partners who have worked to deliver more than 5 billion liters of clean drinking water to families in developing countries, helping save nearly 30,000 lives,” said P&G CEO, president and chairman of the board, Bob McDonald.

Austin, Texas -- Online coupon site RetailMeNot.com on Friday released its second annual Black Friday edition of the Shoppers Trend Report, which showed that 71% of holiday shoppers plan to spend “about the same” or “more” than they spent last year versus 63% who said "about the same" or "more" in 2011.

New York -- Deloitte reported Friday that its Consumer Spending Index rose sharply in October, primarily due to the significant increase in new home prices.

The Index tracks consumer cash flow as an indicator of future consumer spending.