sales posts
FeedPosted Oct 11th 2009 5:40PM by Tom Taulli (RSS feed)
Filed under: Small business
I recently talked to someone who wanted to start a business. He said, "But there is something I don't like to do: sales. It's something I'm really not good at."
Well, I said to him, "You better learn fast."
Sales is critical for any successful business owner. In fact, it is more than just about nabbing customers. It's also about hiring, forming partnerships, and even courting the media.
And, in the current economic environment, sales is perhaps even more important. After all, who wants to part with his or her money right now?
Continue reading Entrepreneur's Journal: Becoming a sales pro
Posted May 19th 2009 2:40PM by Michael Fowlkes (RSS feed)
Filed under: Major movement, Earnings reports, Products and services, Competitive strategy, Home Depot (HD), Employees, Market matters, Lowe's Cos (LOW), Housing, Recession, Financial Crisis
Home Depot (NYSE:
HD) reported its
first quarter numbers today, topping Wall Street estimates, but cautioning that the company's business remains under pressure from the
current housing crisis.
Ahead of today's earnings report, analysts had been expecting to see Home Depot, the nations largest home improvement retailer, show earnings of 29 cents per share for its first quarter, but the company surprised to the upside with 35 cents per share. Sounds like good news, but Wall Street has been selling the stock off so far in today's action.
Continue reading Home Depot (HD) tops estimates but remains under pressure
Posted Mar 25th 2009 4:00PM by Beth Gaston Moon (RSS feed)
Filed under: Bad news, Rumors, Consumer experience, Recession
The Consumerist, a website published by the parent of
Consumer Reports, has a potential
lead on an alleged development at
Borders Group (NYSE:
BGP). Forgive all the wishy-washy verbiage; nothing is confirmed yet. An individual identifying him/herself as a Borders employee informed the website that the chain is severely paring down its CD and DVD sections, leaving only top sellers and reducing the prices of those.
Said alleged employee also encourages shoppers to wait for deep-discount sales of remaining digital inventory in the coming weeks.
On one hand (or on many hands), this makes sense. The advent of MP3 technology,
Amazon.com (NASDAQ:
AMZN),
Netflix (NASDAQ:
NFLX), and file-sharing services have seen bigger and better CD/DVD outlets (e.g. Tower Records - SOB!) go belly up, so why wouldn't Borders focus all of its energy on its more popular books line?
Continue reading Will Borders Stop Selling CDs and DVDs?
Posted Feb 11th 2009 8:45AM by Mark Fightmaster (RSS feed)
Filed under: Technology, Recession
Last week, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) announced that worldwide semiconductor sales dropped to $17.4 billion from $22.3 billion in December, a drop of 22%. Compared to November, December's sales were 16.6% lower. For comparison, November 2007 chip sales fell only 10%.
SIA President George Scalise noted that weakened demand for automotive products, personal computers, cell phones, and corporate information technology products. However, Scalise said the largest revenue declines were "in the memory sector where price pressure more than offset significant growth in total bit shipments."
Continue reading Chip sales fall 22% in December
Posted Feb 5th 2009 5:10PM by Michael Fowlkes (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, Forecasts, Bad news, From the boards, Products and services, Boeing Co (BA), Recession, Financial Crisis
Most companies saw sales weakness in January, and
The Boeing Company (NYSE:
BA) was no exception. As the global economic slowdown continues to drag out, the company saw sharp drops in order for both freight and passenger jets in the month.
The figures are pretty staggering. In January, the company only received order for 18 jetliners. When you compare this with January of last year, when the company had orders for 65 of its planes, you see a year over year decline of 72%.
Continue reading Boeing sees huge drop in jet orders
Posted Jan 7th 2009 5:00PM by Michael Fowlkes (RSS feed)
Filed under: Major movement, International markets, Forecasts, Bad news, Products and services, Intel (INTC), Technology, Recession, Financial Crisis
Shares of chip maker
Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:
INTC) are selling off today after the company announced that
fourth quarter revenues were going to be below (
wsj subscription required) an already lowered estimate.
The stock is currently down 6.4% on the day to $14.38 and trading near its intraday low of $14.34 following the announcement that the company is expecting to see revenues for its fourth quarter around the $8.2 billion level. At this level, the quarterly revenues would be 20% lower than its previous quarter, and well below its guidance from November that forecast a 12% dip in the quarter.
Today's news is a clear sign of the troubles that the semiconductor industry is dealing with at this time. Typically, the fourth quarter is the strongest quarter, and as recently as October, Intel had forecast that its fourth quarter sales would actually be higher than its third quarter numbers by around 3%. How quickly things can change.
Continue reading Intel sells off following Q4 revenue guidance
Posted Dec 26th 2008 4:00PM by Michael Fowlkes (RSS feed)
Filed under: Good news, Products and services, Apple Inc (AAPL), eBay (EBAY), Amazon.com (AMZN), Recession
While most retailers were looking at dismal holiday shopping seasons this year, online retailer
Amazon.com (NASDAQ:
AMZN) announced that it had
its best holiday season in history.
Early indications are showing that retail sales figures could be down as much as 5.5 to 8% during this year, as rising unemployment and general concern over the economy has led to most consumers tightening up their spending this year.
Amazon, which has probably actually been benefiting from the current economic slowdown, saw massive sales on December 15, which is typically the company's strongest day of the year. This year it saw sales of 6.3 million and shipments of 5.6 million units on the 15th, its strongest day in history.
Continue reading Amazon announces best holiday season ever
Posted Nov 11th 2008 6:32AM by Sarah Gilbert (RSS feed)
Filed under: Starbucks (SBUX), McDonald's (MCD)
The world has not been swayed by the coy laugh of organic vegetables, the winsome eyes of local produce, the sparkling personality of grass-fed beef. When money's tight, the world goes to McDonald's for a dollar burger, and maybe a splurge on Southern-style chicken, an opportunity to win big -- or small, that next package of French fries has to come from somewhere -- with the chain's traditional 'Monopoly' game.
Same-store sales were up 8.2% worldwide, with a respectable 5.3% increase in U.S. outlets.
McDonald's Corporation (NYSE:
MCD) is still struggling to gain Wall Street approval for many of its recent moves, such as expanding hours and diving head-first into competition with Starbucks, rolling out espresso bars and fancy blended coffee drinks into its U.S. stores. Given some rough numbers from
Starbucks (NASDAQ:
SBUX) out yesterday, it seems reasonable to wonder whether customers are avoiding the pricey pastries and coffee drinks at Starbucks and heading for the Dollar Menu at McDonald's.
Continue reading McDonald's same-store sales reflect world's love for cheap food
Posted Sep 3rd 2008 5:00PM by Michael Fowlkes (RSS feed)
Filed under: Forecasts, Bad news, Press releases, Competitive strategy, Ford Motor (F), General Motors (GM), Toyota Motor Corp. (TM)
August was yet another tough month for American auto maker
Ford Motor Company (NYSE:
F) as the company reported today that during the month,
U.S. sales were off by a mind boggling 26.5%.
During the month, Ford was able to sell a total of 155,172 light vehicles, which was 3.6% below July's figures of 160,990, which was the worst month for U.S. car sales in the past 16 years.
As expected, truck sales really took a beating last month for the company. With consumers dealing with record high gasoline prices, truck sales have been weak for some time now, and last month the company saw truck off by more than 32%. Its car sales fell by nearly 9%.
Continue reading Ford struggles in August
Posted Jul 8th 2008 9:43AM by Michael Fowlkes (RSS feed)
Filed under: Before the bell, Major movement, Earnings reports, Forecasts, Bad news, Office Depot (ODP), Recession
Look for shares of
Office Depot (NYSE:
ODP) to take a beating today after the office supplies retailer shocked Wall Street by predicting a
huge drop in its second quarter same-stores sales.
Office Depot is going to announce its second quarter numbers later this month, and investors got a better picture of just what to expect this morning after the company stated that it is now forecasting a 10% drop in its same-store sales for the quarter, citing the slowing American economy as the main reason.
The company also warned it expects the remainder of the year to remain difficult. While the retailer believes that sales trends should improve slightly, it is remaining pessimistic. Margins for the quarter, it says, have declined by about 200 basis points than what it had previously anticipated. Even before today's revision, the company had estimated about 200 to 250 basis point decline in its margins. Looking at the rest of the year, the company thinks that its margins should increase sequentially in both Q3 and Q4.
Continue reading Slowing economy hits Office Depot (ODP) hard
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