The weekend before Christmas, which is one of the busiest shopping periods in the year, was quite dull this time around. According to ShopperTrak, a research company, the US retail stores saw 23.7% less traffic and also 5.3% fewer sales compared to previous years. Many stores have kept the discounts for a further period to lure customers, but analysts suggest that these ploys won’t be able to salvage what may be considered the worst holiday season in more than 40 years. With the holiday season coming to a close, retailers are expected to offer bigger and better discounts to clear remaining stock and usher in new items to rev up sales before financial year comes to an end, next month. Many US consumers are laced with smaller budgets for holiday shopping because of the steep unemployment and declining economy.
Verizon Wins Trademark Infringement Lawsuit worth $33.2 Million
Telecom Company Verizon Communications won a record $33.2 million in a ‘cyber-squatting’ judgment against OnlineNIC, an Internet domain registrar. Cyber-squatters are those who register web addresses similar to those of leading retailers and other companies, hoping to lure unwitting consumers and make money by serving them pay-per-click ads. According to Verizon, the default ruling said the firm illegally registered at least 663 domain names that were similar to Verizon trademarks. Verizon sought for about $66.3 million in damages over names that included myverizonwireless.com, iphoneverizonplans.com, and verizon-cellular.com. The court ruled its decision in favor of Verizon that the unauthentic domain names had been designed to attract people trying to access Verizon’s websites. This is the fourth cyber-squatting case that Verizon won in the past couple of years.
Notebook PC Sales More than Desktops for the First Time Ever!
Notebook computer sales outnumbered their desktop counterparts for the first time ever, according to tech tracking group iSuppli Corp. The shipments of notebook PCs increased by 40% during the quarter, while desktop units fell by 1.3%, according to iSuppli. The difference of units for both the types was minor with notebook PCs accounting for 38.6 million units shipped and desktops for 38.5 million units. Hewlett-Packard led PC vendors during the third quarter, shipping about 14.9 million units while Dell was second, with just under 11 million units. Acer and Lenovo stood in the third and the fourth place respectively. The tracking group also expects the PC industry to grow at 4.3% in 2009.