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Despite a sluggish economy, Black Friday sales exceeded expectations for local retailers.

It is traditionally the biggest shopping day of the year, and for many retailers, the day after Thanksgiving starts the shopping season that determines profitability for the year. As the recession plagues consumer confidence, experts predicted sales would remain steady compared to last year — but some retailers say they were pleasantly surprised.

“I had a much better day than what I had planned,” said Russ Dillingham, manager of J.C. Penney in Greenwood Mall. “I had a game plan for that day, but the sales we had were well above the game plan I had.”

Several stores opened early Friday, enticing customers with steep discounts and door busters. And for some, the discounts worked. Lines of shoppers snaked around retail buildings beginning Thanksgiving night.

“Black Friday went really great for us. We had a steady stream that morning and a long line around the building,” said Brandy Stinson, assistant manager at Target in Bowling Green. “There were quite a few more people in line than last year. It took about an hour to get in.”

In fact, Friday’s sales trumped earnings from the same day last year, she said. The big sellers included the iPod Touch, video game systems and televisions. The store sold out of its big-ticket items that day, Stinson said.

“I think maybe on our end we had some good items on sale and some really good discounts,” she said.

For locally owned stores, Black Friday sales also heavily impact business. At Lucy’s Fine Gifts in Bowling Green, owners “were very pleased” with weekend sales, co-owner Patti Dorris said.

“Actually, for those two days, it was better than last year,” she said. “I saw a lot of new customers this year.”

This weekend, customers snatched a variety of items, from Christmas decorations to handbags and jewelry, Dorris said.

“We’re a gift shop,” she said, “so (holiday sales) are extremely important.”

At Heart Strings in Bowling Green, this weekend’s sales increased from last Black Friday sales, owner Kathy Scariot said.

“It’s definitely been positive,” she said. “We have never seen a downturn … we expect to stay strong. We expect to have increases.”

The gift shop recently added some new products which helped sales, but customer traffic still would have been heavy regardless of the additional brand names, she said.

At Coach House Gifts in Greenwood Mall, customers piled through the doors Friday morning.

“As soon as we opened the gates, we knew we were kind of in trouble,” said Sonya Wimpee, local coordinator for Hallmark, the shop’s parent company. “We were kind of amazed; we weren’t expecting it.”

This year, stores opened at different times. Some retailers, such as Toys “R” Us, opened at midnight Friday and others opened a few hours later. Coach House Gifts opened at 6 a.m., giving customers enough time to snag items at other stores, Wimpee said.

“Overall, (we) had a good weekend here. Friday just started it all,” she said.

Nationwide, retail sales rose 0.5 percent compared to last Black Friday, according to news reports.

And this year, retailers heavily depend on Internet sales. On Thursday and Friday, online sales reportedly increased 11 percent compared to last year.

Clusters of shoppers are expected to surf their favorite retail Web sites today in observance of “Cyber Monday.” Several retailers will offer special online discounts today in an attempt to further boost holiday sales, and some retailers have declared Dec. 17 as Free Shipping Day — participating stores will wave shipping costs for items purchased online that day and delivery is guaranteed by Christmas Eve, according to the promotional Web site, www.freeshippingday.com.

Some participating stores include Zappos, Toys “R” Us, Sears, Macy’s, Kmart and American Eagle Outfitters. It’s an effort to generate sales between Black Friday and Christmas.

“November and December are two of our biggest months of the year,” Dillingham said. “The importance hasn’t let up at all. We’ve still got 24 very important days (ahead).”

But if Black Friday’s an indication, retailers say they anticipate booming sales until Christmas.

“They say the economy’s bad,” Wimpee said. “But we don’t see it.”

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The Bon-Ton Stores, Inc. (NASDAQ: BONT) today announced comparable store sales for the five weeks ended January 2, 2010 decreased 2.6%. Total sales for the five weeks decreased 3.0% to $511.1 million compared with $527.2 million for the prior year period.

Year-to-date comparable store sales decreased 6.1%. Year-to-date total sales tiffany on sale 6.0% to $2,779.7 million compared with $2,958.0 million for the same period last year.

Tony Buccina, Vice Chairman and President – Merchandising, commented, “We are pleased with our December sales results, which exceeded expectations despite the snow storms that negatively impacted our performance on key selling days. Our eCommerce business continues to be the fastest growing segment of our company. Our best performing businesses were ladies’ accessories and jewelry, shoes, children’s and moderate missy sportswear. Outerwear and cold weather accessories posted strong sales results as well. Our weakest performing businesses were furniture, hard home and better missy sportswear. December end-of-month inventory was down 4% on a comparable store basis; this reduction, along with 22% less clearance merchandise, will benefit our margin. Our inventories reflect fresh, transitional merchandise and we are pleased with our customer’s positive response.”

Keith Plowman, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, stated, “We ended December with excess borrowing capacity under our revolving credit facility of approximately $488 million, well above the required minimum availability of $75 million.”

The Bon-Ton Stores, Inc., with corporate offices in York, Pennsylvania and Milwaukee, tiffany sale, operates 278 stores, including 11 furniture galleries, in 23 states in the Northeast, Midwest and upper Great Plains under the Bon-Ton, Bergner’s, Boston Store, Carson Pirie Scott, Elder-Beerman, Herberger’s and Younkers nameplates and, in the Detroit, Michigan area, under the Parisian nameplate. The stores offer a broad assortment of brand-name fashion apparel and accessories for women, men and children, as well as cosmetics and home furnishings. For further information, please visit the investor relations section of the Company’s website at http://investors.bonton.com.

Certain information included in this press release contains statements that are forward-looking within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements, which may be identified by words such as “may,” “could,” “will,” “plan,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “estimate,” “project,” “intend” or other similar expressions, involve important risks and uncertainties that could significantly affect results in the future and, accordingly, such results may differ from those expressed in any forward-looking statements made by or on behalf of the Company. Factors that could cause such differences include, but are not limited to, risks related to retail businesses generally; a significant and prolonged deterioration of general economic conditions which could negatively impact the Company, including the potential write-down of the current valuation of intangible assets and deferred taxes; changes in the terms of the Company’s proprietary credit card program; potential increase in pension obligations; consumer spending patterns, debt levels, and the availability and cost of consumer credit; additional competition from existing and new competitors; inflation; changes in the costs of fuel and other energy and transportation costs; weather conditions that could negatively impact sales; uncertainties associated with expanding or remodeling existing stores; the ability to attract and retain qualified management; the dependence upon relationships with vendors and their factors; a security breach; the ability to reduce SG&A expenses; the incurrence of unplanned capital expenditures; the ability to realize the expected benefits from our planned tiffany jewelry on sale in operating structure and the ability to obtain financing for working capital, capital expenditures and general corporate purposes. Additional factors that could cause the Company’s actual results to differ from those contained in these forward-looking statements are discussed in greater detail under Item 1A of the Company’s Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

On May 14, 2009, CCPR acquired ESM Refiners, Inc., a gold and precious metals recycle (“ESM”). The total consideration for the acquisition was 5,625,000 shares of CaseyCorp’s common stock. ESM is a newly organized New York corporation formed to operate as a wholesale buyer and seller of gold and diamonds. ESM acts as a middleman, aggregating gold and diamonds. ESM purchases these precious metals primarily from retail jewelers who have purchased the metals from their customers. In turn, ESM sells the metals to refiners, who then rings down the gold and produce gold bars.

Following the consummation of the acquisition, ESM became a wholly-owned subsidiary of the CaseyCorp.

Casey Corp’s, President and CEO, Mr. Eduard Musheyev, has over 30 years of experience in the gold jewelry market. During this time, Musheyev has set up and managed successful companies involved in manufacturing, retailing, and refining of gold jewelry.

In the first quarter after the acquisition of ESM, Casey Corp showed a positive cash flow and a net profit, with revenues in excess of $8,000,000.

CaseyCorp anticipates an increase in revenues in 2010. With new investment and a leveraging of its bracelets knowledge of the gold market, the Company plans to expand the scope of ESM’s activities, increasing its coverage of the supply chain and giving it access to potentially increased revenues and profitability.

Keywords: Casey Corp, Common Stock, Finance, Investing, Investment, Stock Market.

This article was prepared by Investment Weekly News editors from staff and other reports. Copyright 2010, cufflinks Weekly News via VerticalNews.com.

Today, of course, is Valentine’s Day, and for the lucky few, that means diamonds.

Now, most people still buy things like engagement rings and fine gems in stores, but a growing tiffany ring are now buying diamonds online. They’re spending thousands, even tens of thousands, on gems they’ve never even seen.

From Seattle, NPR’s Wendy Kaufman reports.

WENDY KAUFMAN: Last December, Alok Kapur(ph) proposed to his fiancee. There was champagne, chocolate and a diamond ring. It was classic and romantic, but where he bought the ring was anything but.

Ms. JEANNIE(ph) (Blue Nile): Thank you for calling Blue Nile. This is Jeannie.

KAUFMAN: Blue Nile is the nation’s largest online seller of diamond engagement rings.

Mr. ALOK KAPUR: I was skeptical, and so I called their 800 number.

KAUFMAN: And Kapur began asking questions.

Mr. KAPUR: Questions about the diamonds, what their process of selling was, how they got their GIA certification, where they got their diamond from…

KAUFMAN: He quizzed them for nearly an hour and came away impressed. At Blue Nile, there is no tiffany bracelet the stone, as the industry calls it. Instead, the company provides detailed information, including grading certificates, for all of its conflict-free diamonds. The philosophy is make the transaction transparent, have a liberal return policy, and shoppers will feel comfortable buying sight unseen.

There’s an industry-wide system for grading diamonds for quality. So a certified, one-carat princess diamond of a specific cut, clarity and color should be almost identical in appearance no matter where you buy it.

Ms. DIANE IRVINE (Chief Executive Officer, Blue Nile): So now, these are diamonds in the diamond paper. Each one of these little pouches is an individual diamond, and the specs of the diamond are listed here. This is a…

KAUFMAN: Diane Irvine, the CEO of Blue Nile, has ushered me inside a nondescript, unmarked building in the Seattle area where the company’s jewelers set loose stones into gold or platinum.

Traditional jewelry retailers often sell from the inventory on hand. Blue Nile works differently. Its Web site lists about 55,000 stones offered by different suppliers. Once the consumer selects a diamond, it’s sent to Blue Nile and turned into an engagement ring.

Ms. IRVINE: That little pouch that you saw, it will be delivered to the appropriate jeweler, depending on, you know, the skill needed, and so all of these jewelers are creating customized pieces of jewelry.

KAUFMAN: Americans typically spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $2,500 on an engagement ring. Blue Nile customers typically spend more than twice that.

Because of the way their business is structured, Blue Nile’s operating costs are significantly less than traditional retail jewelers, and its prices are often lower for comparable quality. Alok Kapur says the stones he was considering costs between 15 and 30 percent less at Blue Nile.

Online diamond sellers represent just a tiny sliver of the overall market for diamonds, but they’re exerting enormous downward price pressure on traditional retail jewelers.

Rob Bates, a senior editor at JCK, a jewelry industry publication, says to remain competitive, retailers have to demonstrate that buying a diamond is about more than price.

Mr. ROB BATES (Senior Editor, Jewelers’ Circular Keystone): What they basically have to do is say: Here’s tiffany cufflink it’s better to buy from us than to buy, basically, from a machine on your desktop. We offer the ability to see the stone close up, the ability perhaps to customize so you can see what the ring looks like.

KAUFMAN: And, he says, there are still lots of people who aren’t comfortable buying a big, high-priced item off the Internet.

Wendy Kaufman, NPR News, Seattle.

The first phase of Tiffany’s renovation of its flagship store looks as cut and polished as any Fifth Avenue penthouse. But rival Cartier has a re-buffed Renaissance-style palazzo showcase of its own.
by CAITLIN KELLY
photos omitted
As luxury retail emporiums hunker down against the prevailing frosty winds, two purveyors of high-end tiffany notes have donned new regalia for the night ahead. Jewelers Tiffany & Co. and Cartier have renovated their flagship stores just blocks from each other on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue.
In the 71 years that Tiffany & Co. had leased the ten-story Art Deco building at the southeast corner of 57th Street and Fifth Avenue, it had never undergone a major renovation of its public spaces. In November 1999, Tiffany bought the building for $94 million in cash from Daiichi Real Estate Co. and decided it was time for a major upgrade. Tiffany’s advisor in the purchase was Jones Lang Wooten.
The first six floors will be renovated, and retail selling space will be increased by 25% to a total of 40,000 square feet. Total cost for the renovations is expected to reach $50 million. “The driving force behind this undertaking was the need to create additional retail space within the flagship store for current and future merchandising initiatives,” says Philip M. Bottega, Tiffany’s vice president of real estate services worldwide.
The renovation of the second floor to show-case an expanded assortment of engagement, bridal and other tiffanys was completed in November of last year. Tiffany chose to start with the second floor because of the “overall importance of the floor’s merchandise category and its very strong customer attention,” says Bottega. “The second floor will probably be a more costly build-out than the other floors due to the nature of the intricate detailing of the architecture and the millwork.”
Bottega and Robert Rufino, Tiffany’s vice president of visual creative services and visual merchandising, spent months reviewing the work of 16 architectural firms before narrowing their list to six who were invited to the store, given a presentation explaining Tiffany’s needs, history and style — and asked to come up with a design in only two weeks.
Toronto design firm Yabu Pushelberg, whose other New York retail projects have included Bergdorf Goodman’s basement-level cosmetics floor and Carolina Herrera’s shop at 954 Madison Avenue, presented its proposal for the space in an oversized jewel-box. The selection committee was charmed. “As soon as we saw this, we thought, ‘This really feels like Tiffany,’” recalls Bottega. “It excited all of us.”
For ten months, Yabu Pushelberg worked closely with Tiffany’s in-house architects and designers to come up with the second-floor plan. “We have a love of materials, but we use a lot of restraint,” says Glenn Pushelberg, principal with the firm. Following Tiffany’s directive to create a clean and refined look, Yabu Pushelberg sought inspiration just one floor down, in the streamlined, machine-age esthetic of the original street-level selling floor designed by Cross & Cross.
“We told them at the outset, “We’re going to be your best client and your worst client,” recalls Bottega. “We know the business. We’ll be in on every detail.” And they were. For example, Tiffany’s management required three separate full-scale mockups of the display cases before they were satisfied.
Pushelberg says he didn’t mind the micro-management. “It’s the icon store,” he points out. “How much they move it forward really matters.
Tiffany wanted the sales room to have a residential feel, according to Rufino. Visitors step out of the elevator into a new marble foyer. Although a third of the floor has been given over to back-of-house offices bordering the south side of the selling floor, the sales room is airy and spacious, with a relaxed, comfortable feel. The display cases, lined with pale gray douppioni silk, are made of figured sapele wood, a reddish-brown African hardwood, with brushed nickel fittings. They are lit from within by rows of tiny halogen spotlights — miniature versions of the lights on the room’s ceiling — that elicit maximum sparkle from the jewelry displayed.
The pattern of the camel-and-brown carpet echoes the coffered ceiling the columns are wrapped with beveled, smoked mirrors and the walls are sheathed in pale gray leather. The tables and chairs, designed by Rufino in an Art Deco style, are framed in high-gloss exotic woods, as are planter boxes. The effect is cool but not frosty, classic but not boring.
Yabu Pushelberg is also working on the redesign for the third and fourth floors, to be renovated next year. The fourth floor will be converted from office space to selling space and will be connected to the third floor by a grand staircase. Renovation of the fifth floor, in 2004, will be designed by Tiffany’s in-house architects and designers, as will the conversion later this year of the sixth floor from executive offices to customer service. The office space has been moved to 600 Madison Avenue, where other Tiffany departments, such as marketing and product design, were already located. Renovation of the first floor, by a designer as yet unnamed, is planned for 2003. Floors 7 through 10 will continue to house back-of-house operations and the employee cafeteria.
A few blocks south of Tiffany, at Fifth Avenue and 52nd Street, rival jeweler Cartier completed last August a $10 million renovation of its store in a landmarked palazzo-style mansion built between 1903 and 1905. The renovation was designed by French architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte, who has also designed renovations for a number of tiffany bangles and civic buildings in France and has created new street lamps, benches and traffic lights for Paris’ Champs-Elysees. His design increased the store’s floor area by 77% to a total of 5,084 square feet while restoring original architectural details such as carved woodwork and cast-plaster moldings. Additions include a new bridal area for engagement rings, bands, wedding day jewelry, gifts and stationery.
Does Tiffany feel any heat? Referring to Tiffany’s new second floor, Bottega says, “There is no other fine-jewelry floor like this one in the entire world.”
Faith Hope Consolo, a Manhattan real estate broker with Garrick-Aug Worldwide, sees both remodelings as part of a trend. “These renovations reestablish Fifth Avenue as the ‘luxury walk’ it was known as before,” she says. When mass-market entertainment firms such as Walt Disney and Warner Brothers opened their Fifth Avenue storefronts in the early 1990s, hawking such low-priced items as T-shirts and mugs, the avenue’s character changed. Today, Fifth Avenue is regaining a high-end look and feel with the addition of retailers such as Dunhill, which moved from Park Avenue, and the decision by Salvatore Ferragamo to expand its 15,000-square-foot store to 50,000 square feet, according to Consolo. “That’s a very big commitment to the street,” she says.
Caitlin Kelly is a freelance writer based in New York whose work is published in the New York Times, the tiffany rings Street Journal and the Washington Post.Copyright 2002 Reed Business InformationCopyright 2002 Reed Business Information1130

TIFFANY & Company has long enjoyed a gilded reputation, conferred by its association with the happy things in life: engagements, weddings, babies, trophies, retirements, anniversaries and romantic Hollywood movies. Most notable among the last category is ”Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” the 1961 version of the 1958 Truman Capote novella. In the movie, Holly Golightly and the writer find the cat and decide to get married and live happily ever after.
  But in the book, the cat is lost forever and Ms. Golightly ends up at some unsavory, unmentionable station in earrings. The ending is ambiguous, but I always thought we were supposed to think she becomes a hooker.
Capote hated the movie. In his version, life isn’t accompanied by a soppy Henry Mancini soundtrack but by a vacuum of sorrow, failure and self-deceit. Critical Shopper has long made a study of whether Tiffany, the store, and Tiffany, the embedded romantic image in the mind of the consumer, might be just as different.Â
  Over the last decade, Tiffany has been the victim of its own success, first building up its inexpensive silver lines, like the Return to Tiffany bracelets and necklaces, to attract younger customers, then raising the prices when the store wound up attracting too many younger customers, devaluing the Tiffany name. (Maybe it was the scene in ”Legally Blonde” with Elle Woods wearing nothing but a bikini and her Tiffany heart jewelry that pushed the store over the edge.)
  Facing competition from high-end jewelers — not to mention the luxury designers getting into the jewelry business — Tiffany underwent something of a face-lift, both physical and ideological. The new message is bring on the bling.
  Tiffany operates in more than 100 locations in 16 countries, but the celebrated Art Deco flagship is best for observing the human animal in its ritual courtship dance. On a recent weekend afternoon, the second floor was crowded with couples cautiously circling the counters of engagement rings. To me, they all looked too young to be getting married; some of the men were wearing varsity letter jackets.
  I credit the store for its gentle displays here: the most inexpensive rings — prices start at $1,090 for a ring with a round .18 carat diamond — seem to be presented in the clearest, brightest lights. This is not intended to make these rings seem bigger; rather, it makes them appear to be just as important as the icebergs down the counter — say, the round 10.5 carat diamond ring that sells for $1.12 million.
  The face-lift has entailed refreshing the wood paneling and adding some modern touches, like a wide staircase between the third and fourth floors, over which hangs a brushed-steel and crystal chandelier. Some new jewelry lines are now offered, like the pieces by Frank Gehry, hired by Tiffany in 2005, but those I found — squiggly key rings, metal mesh bracelets and earrings studded randomly with pearls — would appeal to an artier crowd than Tiffany attracts.
  There is some inexpensive silver jewelry, like that at the Charm Bar on the third floor. But the charms for the choose-it-yourself bracelets are limited to letters and Tiffany Roman numerals, which may explain why the place was deserted. The only other charm bracelets are prefabricated versions with dogs and golf clubs. It seems pointless to offer charm bracelets with such a tantalizing lack of variety.
  On the third floor, I tried on some Paloma Picasso pearl earrings ($1,250) and a Cruella DeVille-esque pearl and black onyx necklace (also $1,250) and engaged in a lengthy conversation with the saleswoman about feeling empowered in one’s 40s. (Translation: you can wear pearls and not necessarily look like the elder Barbara Bush.)
  The staff members are, as you would expect, unremittingly polite. On the fourth floor, I watched a young woman with a rumpled Bloomingdale’s bag pore over silver key chains for half an hour with a patient clerk. ”No, he doesn’t have this many keys,” she said, passing over one, her chin in her hand. ”We could engrave this one,” the clerk offered, showing her another.
  While Tiffany has sold millions of diamond engagement rings, many of its customers would pay a surcharge for the blue box because it represents trust and quality. What most people want when they celebrate their marriage is the manufacture of perfect memories, and for them the blue box is as essential a part of the wedding tradition as a white veil. In the marriages I’ve observed that began with a blue box, there is a kind of assurance that buying your ring at Tiffany inures you from bad marital juju, as if the union were protected by the Good Housekeeping seal of approval. But if things don’t work out, those kinds of expectations in marriage make for the bitterest of ends.
  Over the last 10 years, I’ve visited Tiffany possibly a dozen times and put the Web site through its paces. I registered there when I got married, and on that count, it fared beautifully. When my china pattern was to be discontinued, the company sent me three letters asking if I wanted to buy more before it was no longer available. But the best test, I thought, would be to see if an earring I left there for repair in 2002 was still at the store.
  So much time had passed that Tiffany’s customer service department has moved to another floor. It had been so long that people I know have met, gotten engaged (with that little blue box), married, had a child and already divorced. It had been so long that I had lost all the paperwork stating my ownership of the earring.
  On a Sunday afternoon last month, I sat waiting in the confessional-like carrels of the service department, expecting to be told that the small Schlumberger turquoise earring (a gift) had long been remanded to the bad, anonymous place where all unclaimed repaired earrings go. But after five minutes of gentle tapping at her computer, the attendant summoned me. It had been sent to an outlying warehouse, but they had it.
  ”This time, why don’t we send it to you?” she said. ”I think we’d better not wait for you to come pick it up necklaces.” And so they did, free of charge. A happy movie ending, to be sure.
  Now, if only I can find the other earring.Tiffany & Company727 Fifth Avenue (57th Street); (212) 755-8000 ATMOSPHERE — Depending on the day, either bank-vault quiet or carnival-esque. Between 5 p.m. and closing on Valentine’s Day is ”a real hoot,” one clerk said. ”The men come in sweating and screaming, ‘Do you have anything heart-shaped?’ ” SERVICE: Reliable and gentle.PRICES: A silver chain for a Tiffany charm, $50; 64-carat pear-shaped diamond earrings, $6.5 million.OVERHEARD CONVERSATION: ”Honey, I love you a lot, but not three-quarters of a million dollars’ worth.”

NEW YORK (AFX) – Fine jewelry retailer Tiffany & Co. reported on Wednesday robust holiday sales and offered an upbeat profit outlook. The company’s shares fell almost 2 percent, however, on investors’ concerns about its business in Japan.
Tiffany said that global sales in stores open at least a year, or same-store sales, rose 7 percent during the November-December holiday period. For Nov. 1 through Dec. 31, total sales increased 15 percent to $818.1 million, due to strong growth in the U.S. and most international markets. On a constant-exchange-rate basis, total sales rose 14 percent.
‘We are delighted to report such strong overall sales growth for the holiday season which exceeded our expectations,’ said tiffany J. Kowalski, chairman and CEO. ‘We saw healthy sales increases in many product categories ranging from diamonds to silver jewelry.‘
Looking ahead, the company forecasts full-year earnings of $1.82 to $1.85 per share. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial are currently looking for fiscal 2006 profit of $1.82 per share, on average. The company’s fiscal year ends Jan 31.
Tiffany’s also said it will accelerate 2007 Tiffany & Co. store openings to between 5 and 7 in the U.S. and 10 internationally, and forecast 2007 earnings per share growth of 13 to 15 percent on low-double-digit sales growth. That would translate into profit at or above Wall Street’s current consensus estimate of $2.06 per share.
During the holiday period, the company said U.S. retail sales increased 12 percent to $432.4 million, and same-store sales were up 8 percent, due to sales growth of 15 percent in Tiffany’s New York flagship store and 7 percent in comparable branch stores. Tiffany’s said the strong results were fueled by increases both in the number of transactions and in the bangles amount spent per transaction.
International retail sales grew 18 percent to $283.5 million, with same-store sales rising 6 percent. The retailer said it saw strong sales growth in most international markets, which offset a same-store sales decline in Japan.
Direct marketing sales gained 10 percent to $69.7 million, due to increases in both the number of orders and in the amounts spent per order, the company said.
Tiffany’s also said it saw increased wholesale sales of diamonds during the holidays, as well as greater specialty retail sales in its Iridesse and Little Switzerland stores.
Most analysts were positive on the news, but there was some worries about performance in Japan — the only region where same-store sales fell — and pressures on margins.
Tiffany had a ’strong holiday as expected,’ said David A. Schick, an analyst for Stifel Nicolaus & Co., in a note on rings. ‘Essentially all regions other than Japan are robust. Results suggest consumers in these non-Japan markets have a strong appreciation for luxury goods and the Tiffany brand.’
Merrill Lynch analyst Lorraine Maikis, who rates Tiffany ‘Neutral,’ noted the company is facing margin pressure
Shares of Tiffany were down 70 cents, or 1.74 percent, to $38.93 in late afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

Uneven December retail sales results did not give apparel stores, or Wall Street, a green light to celebrate.

Department store sales were flat compared with November and declined 1.2 percent to $15.74 million compared with a year earlier, the Commerce Department said Thursday. Specialty store sales dropped 0.6 percent for the month, but rose 5 percent to $17.46 million year-over-year.

The industry’s less-than-stellar sales result helped push retail stocks down 0.5 percent discount tiffany.

There is a gloom that is still sitting in our consumer economy, said Kevin Regan, senior managing director and retail industry expert with FTI Consulting. We’re going to be in a slow recovery. December was a good omen, but I’m not convinced that it is a sign of a trend.

While the macroeconomy struggles with 10 percent unemployment and housing foreclosures, it would be risky for stores to be aggressive, he said.

Retailers view the spring with caution, Regan said.

Retail associations said they saw signs of improvement through the holiday season as merchants focused on inventory management and discounting.

With an eye on managing inventory and maintaining lower price points, retailers did a tremendous job of planning for the holiday season, said Rosalind Wells, chief economist for the National Retail Federation. But, she cautioned, while the consumer appears to be spending again, double-digit unemployment numbers will tiffany jewellery an impediment to maintaining this momentum.

The Retail Industry Leaders Association described December sales results as subdued.

December retail sales of all goods and services in the U.S. fell 0.3 percent compared with the previous month, but were up 5.4 percent from a year earlier to $353 billion. Total sales for 2009 declined 6.2 percent compared with 2008.

While the overall trend is in the right direction, today’s retail sales data show that we have more work to do, said Commerce Secretary Gary Locke.

In New York on Thursday, the S&P Retail Index slid 1.95 points to 409.43 as the Dow Jones Industrial Average inched up 0.3 percent, or 29.78 points, to 10,710.55. Tokyo turned the strongest performance among the major international markets, with the Nikkei 225 rising 1.6 percent to 10,907.68.

Target Corp. ran countertrend among U.S. retail stocks and rose 1.5 percent to $50.10 after restarting its stock buyback program. The cheap-chic retailer has about $5.1 billion left under its $10 billion buyback program, which was put on hold in November 2008 to protect the firm’s liquidity position and debt rating.

Although overall apparel sales are still not great, the trendline is much better than it was during the tiffany crisis and recession. That normalization has helped stabilize vendor performance and pushed Moody’s Investors Service to raise its credit outlook for U.S. apparel producers to stable from negative. Moody’s cited the industry’s efforts to cut costs and control inventories, which should lessen markdown exposure and aid profitability. The credit rating agency also said firms focusing on moderate price points would outperform those in the luxury tier.

The consumer’s not great, but there’s nothing that I see that says we’re falling off a cliff, said Scott Tuhy, a Moody’s debt analyst.

Tuhy said the industry had a sharp, quick fall and will have slow sluggish growth out.

Exclusive from other Membership Rewards program offerings, First Collection offers a rich array of more than 50 luxurious rewards in four distinct categories — lifestyle, jewelry, watches and travel — from a prestigious group of 11 initial partners that includes Baccarat, Chopard, Davidoff, Eos Airlines, IWC, Lamborghini, Mikimoto, Monarch Billiards, Oberoi Hotels & Resorts, Piaget and Steinway & Sons. A new fashion category — and additional partners and rewards from Bergdorf Goodman, Ermenegildo Zegna, Neiman Marcus, Pebble tiffany jewellery Beach Resorts(R), Raffles Hotels & Resorts and Tiffany & Co. — will be added shortly.

From a Mikimoto one-of-a-kind cultured pearl necklace to a custom-built billiards table, or an exotic escape at a luxury resort to a lease for a Lamborghini convertible, eligible Card members can redeem their points for enviable rewards ranging in value from as low as 20,500 points, to as high as 93,200,000. First Collection rewards include:

– Baccarat Grand Bordeaux Wine Tasting Glass Set of Two – 22,500 points

– Chopard “Ice Cube Collection” 18K White Gold and Diamond Watch -

93,200,000 points

– Davidoff Black Leather Cigar Case – 20,500 points

– Roundtrip Business Class Ticket on EOS Airlines (NYC to London) -

85,000 points

– IWC Portuguese Chrono-Automatic Steel Watch with Black Crocodile Strap

- 640,000 points

– Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder 2006-2007 (12-month lease) – 10,500,000

points

– Mikimoto One-of-a-Kind South Sea Cultured Pearl and tiffany bangles Ocean

Necklace – 13,000,000 points

– Monarch Professional Billiards Equipment Package – 110,000 points

– One-night stay at select Oberoi Hotels & Resorts Properties – from

35,000 points

– Piaget Men’s Polo 18K White Gold Bracelet Watch – 2,610,000 points

– On-Demand Private Jet Service – 384,000 points

– Steinway Living Room Grand Piano, Model O – 7,200,000 points

– Furthermore, soon Card members will be able to redeem points for

Bergdorf Goodman, Ermenegildo Zegna, Neiman Marcus and Tiffany & Co tiffany rings.

Gift Cards – from 10,000 points

Platinum and Centurion Card members can browse and redeem First Collection rewards with ease through an exclusive First Collection sitelet on the Membership Rewards website. Once Card members have logged in, the lushly- designed site, which features dramatic partner reward images and item descriptions, instantly recognizes enrolled Membership Rewards Card members, provides them with their current point balance, allows them to browse by category, partner or item, and redeem online. Card members can also redeem First Collection rewards by calling 1-800-AXP-EARN (1-800-297-3276).

“First Collection pairs premium customers with premium brands and a specially-tailored collection of highly desirable rewards,” said Ralph Andretta, senior vice president and general manager, Membership Rewards, American Express. “The launch of First Collection marks the first time that we have offered rewards and partners that cater to the premium lifestyles of our Platinum and Centurion Card members. As a long-time leader in the rewards and luxury space, we strive to continue to offer innovative program enhancements that deliver value, choice and relevance to our Card members and partners, as well as an unmatched breadth and depth of offerings.”

About The Membership Rewards Program

The Membership Rewards program from American Express has more than 140 redemption partners. The program allows tiffany bracelets to earn one point for virtually every dollar charged on eligible, enrolled American Express(R) Cards.(1)

Membership Rewards points are redeemable in a wide selection of reward categories, including travel, retail merchandise, entertainment, shopping and recreation gift certificates, experiences, financial services and charity rewards. Enrollees may also customize their own redemption experiences through the program’s Your Reward(R)(2) option and use points for just about anything they can imagine. Points have no expiration date, and there is no limit on the number of points a Cardmember can earn.