Retail

Apple Store sales see-saw wildly

Revenues soared 95.2% last quarter. In 2009, they fell sharply. Charlie Wolf explains.

No Wall Street analyst follows Apple's (AAPL) retail operations more closely than Needham's Charlie Wolf, who has been using quarterly in-store sales as a metric for how well the Apple Stores are doing in general.

But you can sense his frustration in a note to clients issued earlier this week in which he reports that in-store sales, while up MORE

Holiday crime spree targets Apple

Since late November, retail stores in four states have been hit by nighttime burglaries

Apple (AAPL) doesn't like to talk about it, but its products have become a favorite target of robbers, pickpockets and burglars. According a reporter who covers the New York City Police Department, iPods and iPhones regularly top the list of items lifted from Big Apple subway passengers.

And now, as Christmas approaches, Apple Stores across the U.S. have MORE

Goodbye, Best Buy. Hello, specialty retail?

With the big box consumer gadget chain's revenues down, it seems shoppers are heading to specialty stores or online to get their goods.

Though holiday shopping has been surprisingly healthy so far, particularly online, Best Buy is feeling the pain associated with fickle consumer trends. For its third quarter ending November 27, Best Buy (BBY) reported revenues of $11.89 billion, less than the $12 billion the company pulled in the MORE

How Black Friday ads get leaked

Major retailers like Wal-Mart and Home Depot are battling the web sites that post their ads early, but they may have to shoulder some of that blame.

By Daniel Roberts, reporter

Next week brings more than one American tradition: Thanksgiving turkey followed by a rush of frenzied bargain-hunters at the malls on Black Friday.

Unfortunately for some retailers, the Internet has added a new layer to the tradition: their ads posted and MORE

$44 million for Mr. Genius Bar

Another big payday for Apple's senior vice president for retail

Ron Johnson, the man Steve Jobs hired from Target (TGT) to create the Apple Store -- and who famously persuaded his boss, over Jobs' initial objections, to include a Genius Bar -- has joined the string of top Apple (AAPL) executives taking advantage of the stock's recent run-up to cash in some options.

According to an SEC Form 4 filed Saturday, Johnson MORE

E-books, hardcovers, online booksellers and stores: Why everybody can win

How the e-book and the bookstore can co-exist.

by Michael Edwards, CEO, Borders

We've heard it all before: digital content means the end of physical media. As consumers flock to the convenience of instant gratification and on-the-go content, traditional business models will be overturned, commerce will move online, and traditional retail outlets and the products on their shelves will go the way of the typewriter.

Or maybe not.

There's no question that both MORE

Deal-a-day sites and retailers get social

"Deal a day" websites are changing the way we shop -- and raising tons of venture capital. Discounter Groupon is leading the way.

A few years ago Andrew Mason was a public-policy graduate student who had gotten into a social rut. "There's so much to do in Chicago," he recalls, "but I found myself going to the same movie theaters and restaurants."

To make trying new places less risky, Mason, 29, started MORE

Mac vs. Windows 7: Four new videos

Celebrating Microsoft's big day with a store opening and three new Get-a-Mac ads

In the long running battle between Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT), Thursday was a huge win for the boys from Redmond.

Windows 7 launched without a visible hitch and generated more positive reviews than we could count (a Google News search turned up 3,281, but we haven't read them all.)

Meanwhile, in Scottsdale, Ariz., the opening of the first Microsoft MORE

Video: An Apple Store trifecta

Despite the recession, Apple (AAPL) opened three new retail outlets on Saturday -- in Mississauga, Ont., Naperville, Ill., and Reston, Va.  -- and its fan base obliged by forming long snaking queues and posting hand-held videos documenting the madness that ensued.

These YouTube videos -- complete with T-shirted Apple employees happily making fools of themselves -- have become icons of the company's extraordinary appeal. What other brand, in or out of MORE