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• Apple's fast climb to top music seller

  Posted Apr 03 2008, 12:32 PM by Kim Peterson
  Filed under: Apple, Amazon, Retail, Kim Peterson
  Rating:

  Apple has become the top music seller in the U.S. The company made the announcement today after Ars Technica leaked an internal e-mail with details. Just a couple of months ago, Apple passed Best Buy to become the #2 music retailer. Now, the company is topping the charts.

  Apple had 19% of the market in January, and Wal-Mart was in second place with 15%, according to the leaked e-mail. It's worth noting an obvious difference between the two: Apple is an all-digital music seller, while most of Wal-Mart's sales are physical CDs. Best Buy, Amazon and Target rounded out the top five spots. Some tech blogs thought that January's numbers were skewed due to people redeeming iTunes gift cards recieved over the holidays. But it looks like Apple stayed on top in February as well.

  Shares of the company rose nearly 3% today to close at $151.61. Here's what others had to say about the news:   Read More...

  Discuss ( 72 comments) 35,536 Views Digg this | Email this | Link to this

• Death of consumer greatly exaggerated

  Posted Feb 13 2008, 02:17 PM by Robert Walberg
  Filed under: Apple, Retail, Target, Nordstrom, JC Penney
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  To paraphrase Mark Twain, the report of the American consumers' death has been greatly exaggerated.

  As evidenced by Wednesday's retail sales report for the month of January, which showed a gain of 0.3%, we're all out there spending like usual despite the high price of gasoline, the credit crunch and the fear of recession. Given that consumer spending accounts for more than 70% of GDP growth, the data were a strong sign that maybe, just maybe, all this recession talk is much ado about nothing.

  Now I don't want to put too much stock into one piece of data, especially given that the month of January now benefits from all the gift cards given at the holidays. Spending that used to be recorded in December now gets registered in January (or later when the cards are used).  Nevertheless, the data seem to suggest that even under the stress of current economic conditions, consumers will fork over their money for a new shirt, a pair of pants or yet another product from Apple.   Read More...

  Discuss ( 16 comments) 24,149 Views Digg this | Email this | Link to this

• Winning ugly with Crocs

  Posted Oct 12 2007, 08:31 AM by Robert Walberg
  Filed under: Google, Apple, Retail
  Rating:

  

  They're ugly, made from plastic, get caught in escalators and are littered with holes, yet somehow Crocs have become a retailing phenomenon. 

  Everyone from little kids to grandparents now walks around in these clunky, brightly colored eyesores, and the madness isn't contained to the U.S.  Management recently announced that it expects international sales to top domestic sales in the recently completed third quarter.  Amazing.

  Equally amazing is the growth in the stock. Shares are up 256% over the past 52 weeks alone. That's better than the returns of Apple (+128%) and Google (+46%) combined. So is it time to sell before the fad fades?

  If you take your cue from insiders then maybe the answer is yes. Over the past few weeks, insiders have unloaded just over 179,000 shares at an average price of $67 per share. However, it's important to remember that insiders still own about 11% of the stock and that there are numerous reasons why insiders will occasionally sell their stock. The recent selling doesn't look to be unusually heavy so I wouldn't let this info sway my decision   Read More...

  Discuss ( 242 comments) 73,026 Views Digg this | Email this | Link to this