U.S. retailers used extra promotions and extended hours to draw procrastinators and shoppers delayed by the East Coast snowstorm in the final stretch before Christmas.
Target Corp. extended its hours to midnight Dec. 21 through yesterday. Borders Group Inc., Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Toys “R” Us Inc. also kept stores open longer. Best Buy Co. offered some DVDs for half off and Jos. A. Bank Clothiers Inc., a men’s clothing chain, deepened discounts to at least 50 percent.
“We didn’t intend to do everything, and now we’re doing everything,” Jos. A. Bank Chief Executive Officer Neal Black, 54, said Dec. 22 by telephone from the company’s Hampstead, Maryland, headquarters. “We’ll be slugging right down to the last minute.”
Sales will be compressed into the final days before Christmas, said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at NPD Group Inc. The snowstorm disrupted the Saturday before Dec. 25. Last year, that was the second-biggest shopping day after Black Friday, the day after U.S. Thanksgiving. Shoppers already had procrastinated more than in recent seasons.
“Retailers will pull out all the stops this week,” Cohen said in a Dec. 21 Bloomberg Television interview. NPD is a Port Washington, New York-based market research firm.
Maintaining Forecasts
The Washington-based National Retail Federation was holding to its forecast for a 1 percent drop in holiday sales, Ellen Davis, a spokeswoman, said Dec. 20. The International Council of Shopping Centers reiterated on Dec. 22 its forecast for a 2 percent increase in sales at stores open at least a year in December, after reporting that the storm slowed growth to 0.4 percent year over year in the week ended Dec. 19.
Jos. A. Bank cut prices of all clothing Dec. 21 and Dec. 22, after store visits slowed, Black said. The chain had planned to offer some of that merchandise at 40 percent and 30 percent off, he said.
The retailer’s shares fell 17 cents to $42.82 at 1:30 p.m. after a shortened pre-Christmas session on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Target, based in Minneapolis, decreased 20 cents to $48.65 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Borders, based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, declined 3 cents to $1.22. Bentonville, Arkansas-based Walmart climbed 28 cents to $53.60. Best Buy, based in Richfield, Minnesota, dropped 6 cents to $40.70.
Kathryn Greenberg, a 41-year-old Washington resident who works in philanthropy, said she lucked into some “fantastic” late discounts yesterday 500 fast cash payday loan. She bought clothing for her children and other family members mostly at 60 percent off at a Gap store as well as one of Gap Inc.’s Banana Republic stores.
Bigger Savings, More Buying
“I am spending the same as last year, but getting more,” said Greenberg, who was carrying two bags and heading into Sephora, the cosmetics chain owned by Paris-based LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA.
Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, will keep most of its 803 discount stores and its Sam’s Clubs open until 8 p.m. today, two hours later than last year, said John Simley, a spokesman. Amazon.com Inc. extended by one day, until Dec. 21, its cutoff for standard shipping.
Gap, based in San Francisco, retreated 20 cents to $20.71 on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday. LVMH gained 44 cents to 77.90 euros in Paris trading. Seattle-based Amazon.com, the largest Internet retailer, dropped 47 cents to $138.47 on the Nasdaq.
East Coast Snow
Stores along the East Coast closed early during the Dec. 19 snowstorm. Twenty-four inches of snow fell on Bethesda, Maryland and 23.2 inches were recorded at Philadelphia International Airport, according to the National Weather Service.
Consumers had completed 72 percent of their holiday shopping through Dec. 20, down from 80 percent a year earlier, the New York-based ICSC said Dec. 22.
Historically, the 10 days before Christmas have made up as much as 40 percent of total holiday sales for November and December, according to Joseph Feldman, a managing director at Telsey Advisory Group in New York.
Sales fell 13 percent to $6.9 billion on the last Saturday before Christmas from the previous year, according to Chicago- based researcher ShopperTrak RCT Corp.
Some of lost sales did translate into online purchases. Sales at Web sites jumped 24 percent on Dec. 18 and Dec. 19 from a year ago, according to Coremetrics, a San Mateo, California- based marketing company.
Some impulse buying and so-called self-purchases, however, were irretrievably lost during the storm, Richard Jaffe, an analyst with Stifel Nicolaus & Co. in New York, said in a Bloomberg Radio interview on Dec. 22.
“It’s not a delay, it’s lost sales,” Jaffe said. “You just don’t recover that.”
WASHINGTON–Home resales surged last month to the highest level in nearly three years, reflecting an extraordinary level of federal support that has pulled the housing market back from the worst downturn since the Great Depression.
Buyers were racing to complete their sales before the original expiration date of a tax credit for first-time buyers that was scheduled to expire Nov. 30. Last month, Congress decided to extend and expand the credit to ensure the housing market could sustain its recovery.
The Realtors estimated that about 2 million homebuyers have taken advantage of the credit so far and forecasts that another 2.4 million will use it by the middle of next year. First-time buyers made up about half of all transactions last month, driving sales up 44 percent above last year's levels, a record jump.
Sales are now up 46 percent from the bottom in January, but down 10 per cent from the peak more than four years ago.
The median sales price was $172,600, down 4.3 per cent from a year earlier, and up 0.2 per cent from October.
"Things are stabilizing," said Pete Flint, chief executive of real estate Web site Trulia.com. "There is a significant amount of buyer interest out there.''
November sales rose 7.4 per cent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.54 million, from a downwardly revised pace of 6.09 million in October.
Sales had been expected to rise to an annual pace of 6.25 million, according to economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters.
The inventory of unsold homes on the market fell about 1 percent to 3.5 million. That's a healthy 6.5 month supply at the current sales pace, the lowest level in three years.
Besides the existing tax credit of up to $8,000 for first-time buyers, homeowners who have lived in their current properties for at least five years can now claim a tax credit of up to $6,500 if they relocate. To qualify, buyers must sign a purchase agreement by April 30.
Postponing the deadline could mean sales will drop during the winter months and recover in the spring.
"Buyers have no sense of urgency now," said Gary DeRosa, an agent with ZipRealty Inc. in Seattle.
How’s this for a stocking stuffer?
Canadians are generally tightening their purse strings this Christmas shopping season, but some are shelling out a pretty penny for bars of gold.
ScotiaMocatta, the precious metals division of the Bank of Nova Scotia, is enjoying "record sales" of small precious metals products during this holiday season, even though the price of gold continues to trade above $1,100 (U.S.) an ounce.
"By far, the most popular product we are selling is the one-ounce Scotia Gold Bar," said Richard Maskobi, managing director of ScotiaMocatta.
While the retail price for that product fluctuates daily, it is based on the spot price of gold plus a premium to cover other costs such as manufacturing, shipping and storage. On Friday afternoon, the rectangular bar – which has a gold purity of 0.9999 or 24 karats – was selling for about $1,233.90 (Canadian).
ScotiaMocatta does not release specifics about its sales data. Maskobi, however, said sales remain robust during final days before Christmas.
Gold is generally seen as a "safe haven" during financial crises, and demand for the precious metal has been increasing over the past few years.
Earlier this month, gold hit a record above $1,200 (U.S.) an ounce. The price has retreated in recent weeks but consumer demand is not slowing down.
"There isn’t a typical buyer," Maskobi said. "It is varied. Some people are buying a lot of smaller products just as gifts; some people are buying it as (investment) diversification; some people are buying just because they like gold instant personal loans guaranteed."
Scotiabank is one of the world’s largest precious metals dealers. While it is not the only bank selling gold in Canada, it is the only one that does so both through its branches and an online system.
Launched earlier this year, The ScotiaMocatta Precious Metals eStore is currently offering extended holiday hours. Volume is also up at its branches. Said Maskobi: "I know our phone stats are through the roof as well."
Scotiabank is not alone. In November, the U.S. Mint suspended sales of its popular American Eagle one-ounce gold coin after consumers snapped up its entire supply.
While the Royal Canadian Mint has not suspended bullion sales, it has sold out of some gold collector pieces such as two of its "Fine Gold Kilo Coins." One such coin entitled "Toward Confederation (2008)" has a price tag of $49,000 (Canadian). Other gold coins are on back order.
Mint spokesperson Alex Reeves said it is normal for limited edition products to sell out. Still, he notes consumer demand has increased in recent years.
The mint is also recording "much higher" sales but the increase is not necessarily linked to Christmas, Reeves said. Nevertheless, that didn’t stop him from dropping Santa a big hint: "I’d love to find gold bullion coins in my stocking."
More than 30 leading budget experts on Monday prescribed a course for deficit reduction that the nation needs to take if it wants to "buy some breathing room" to avoid a debt crisis.
In its report "Red Ink Rising," the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform called on Congress and the White House to commit to stabilizing the public debt to 60% of gross domestic product by 2018. Left unchecked, it’s on track to hit 85% by 2018, and then grow to 100% four years after that. By 2038, it could reach 200%.
To put those numbers in context, just before the economic crisis, public debt stood at 41% of GDP. The public debt — $7.72 trillion as of Dec. 11 - represents the money the United States owes its creditors. It does not include the $4.36 trillion the federal government owes itself because of all the revenue the Treasury has borrowed from federal programs such as Social Security and Medicare over the years.
The concern is that well before the public debt reaches 200% of GDP, fear of inflation — and its twin nemesis, a decline in the dollar — could cause investors to demand a higher return in exchange for buying U.S. Treasurys. And higher rates would make the U.S. debt load that much more onerous because the government is constantly refinancing the debt it already has on the books at whatever the going interest rates are.
To stabilize the debt at 60% of GDP, the commission recommends policymakers negotiate a package of measures in 2010 that would begin to phase in by 2012, assuming the economy has recovered.
"To buy some breathing room, the United States must show its creditors that it is serious about stabilizing the federal debt over a reasonable timeframe. Both spending cuts and tax increases will be necessary," the commission wrote.
The mere act of signaling to creditors that a deficit-reduction plan is in place may have a positive economic effect, the group asserted.
"Improving [creditors’] expectations can lower investor perceptions of risk and thus the premiums that creditors demand for interest rates paid on U.S. assets," the report said.
In order for the plan to be perceived as credible, however, the commission believes there should be an automatic trigger to set in motion spending cuts and tax increases if a debt target set by lawmakers is missed in any given year instant payday loans.
"The goal of an enforcement mechanism is to be punitive enough to cause lawmakers to act but realistic enough that it can be enacted if necessary as a last resort," the commission wrote.
The commission’s members are a bipartisan collection of former directors of the Congressional Budget Office, the White House Office of Management and Budget, as well as former chairmen of the Senate and House Budget Committees and former U.S. Comptrollers General, among others.
Their estimates and suggestions are based on the assumptions that a number of current policies will remain in place. Among the assumptions are that the majority of the Bush-era tax cuts will be extended, that the reach of the alternative minimum tax will be reduced so as not to ensnare middle-income families, and that normal discretionary government spending will grow at the same rate as the economy, rather than inflation.
Easier said than done
The commission acknowledges that reducing U.S. debt levels will be neither quick or easy.
And their suggestions are certain to meet resistance from any number of quarters, including from those who fear Social Security and Medicare benefits will be cut drastically.
The growth in the spending for both of those entitlement programs and for Medicaid are growing faster than the GDP. Deficit hawks say permanent changes need to be made to ensure long-term solvency for the programs and fiscal stability for the federal budget.
"That does not mean, however, that the entire solution has to come from changes to [programs such as Medicare and Social Security] — or spending in general," the commission said. "To the contrary, government health and retirement programs will almost certainly have to grow as a share of the economy because of demographic and technological factors."
The bottom line is the commission believes changes to the entitlement programs are necessary but not sufficient. "We believe the problem is so large that nearly all areas of the budget will be affected," the report said.
China, South Korea and other emerging economies in East Asia may grow at the fastest pace in three years in 2010 as the global recovery spurs demand for the region’s goods, a division of the Asian Development Bank said.
China, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and 10 Southeast Asia economies may expand 6.8 percent in 2010 from 4.2 percent this year, according to a report released today by the ADB’s Office for Regional Economic Integration in Manila.
Asia is leading the world’s emergence from its deepest recession since the 1930s after governments boosted spending, cut taxes and slashed interest rates, averting a spiral into another Great Depression. Growth could falter as the effect of stimulus measures fade and governments exit expansionary policies, the ADB division said.
“With the global recovery tentative, monetary policy should remain accommodative where feasible, with a watchful eye on inflation and asset prices,” the division said. “The recovery could falter if policy makers tighten too early, but tightening too late may lead to higher inflation and unsustainable fiscal deficits in the coming years.”
Confidence in the world economy dipped last month as central banks’ actions to withdraw some emergency measures sparked concern about the strength of the recovery, a Bloomberg survey of users on six continents showed.
Policy makers in Asia have started raising borrowing costs to contain accelerating inflation. The Reserve Bank of Australia increased borrowing costs a total of 75 basis points at its last three meetings and Vietnam raised its benchmark rate by one percentage point to 8 percent in November saving account pay day loan.
Subdued Inflation
“Inflationary pressures appear to be well under control for the moment,” the ADB’s regional integration office said. “While recently showing slight increases, inflation is still expected to remain subdued as economies operate with excess capacity.”
Recovery in East Asia also hinges on the revival of growth in Europe and in the U.S., as this will affect the region’s export-dependent economies, the office said.
“The deleveraging cycle is still in its early years, and if households in developed countries, particularly the U.S., save more-than-expected to repair their balance sheets, then weaker consumer demand will delay recovery in these economies,” the ADB division said.
Emerging East Asia groups China, the Southeast Asian nations of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, and the newly industrialized economies of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan.
Developing Asia, which includes economies such as India and Pakistan and excludes Japan, will probably expand 6.6 percent next year after growing 4.5 percent in 2009, the ADB said in a separate note today.
Clayton-based Enterprise Bank & Trust has agreed to acquire the assets and deposits of a small Arizona bank that failed on Friday.
Valley Capital Bank in Mesa, Ariz., was closed Friday by state regulators.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was appointed as receiver. However, the FDIC reached an agreement with Enterprise Bank.
Valley Capital’s single branch in the Phoenix suburb will reopen Monday as a branch of Enterprise.
Enterprise paid the FDIC a 2-percent premium for the right to assume all the deposits of Valley Capital, the FDIC said. Enterprise agreed to purchase "essentially all" of the bank’s failed assets. Full details on the transaction were not available.
Valley Capital Bank had assets of about $40.3 million and total deposits of about $41.3 million as of Sept. 30.
As part of the deal, the FDIC and Enterprise Bank entered a loss-share agreement on about $30 million of Valley Capital’s assets, meaning the FDIC would absorb 80 percent of losses on loans and foreclosed properties.
The acquisition is small compared to Enterprise’s size, which is about $2.5 billion in assets. But it allows the bank to expand in Arizona, where Enterprise already has a loan production office in Phoenix easy payday loans.
Last year, Enterprise applied to open retail banking in Arizona, but the state’s banking regulators curtailed new charter approvals due to troubles in the Arizona real estate market. The bank later withdrew its application.
The deal "allows us now to operate as a full-service bank in Arizona through our new Enterprise Bank & Trust location in Mesa," Peter Benoist, President and CEO of Enterprise Financial Services Corp., the parent of Enterprise Bank, said in a statement. "Also, it enables us to open additional Enterprise locations in the greater Phoenix area, subject to the normal regulatory approvals."
Currently, Enterprise Bank has 11 branches in the St. Louis and Kansas City metro areas.
Besides Valley Capital Bank, the FDIC also on Friday took over Overland Park, Kan.-based SolutionsBank and Miami-based Republic Federal Bank. Those operations were acquired by other banks. The three failures brought the number of FDIC-insured institutions to fail in the nation this year to 133.
James B. Lockhart III, vice chairman of WL Ross & Co. and the former director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, said the U.S. housing decline may not be over.
Lockhart said at a conference in New York that he’s concerned there may be “another leg down” because of the pace of foreclosures. Foreclosures will “spike” unless the Obama administration’s programs to spur home loan modifications do more to reduce homeowners’ debts, he said.
“We need to be more aggressive in writing down mortgages and reducing principal to keep people in homes,” he said. “A spike could be pretty big.”
Lockhart also said he expects that “hundreds of banks will be taken over.” The possibility comes from troubles in commercial real estate, which lags behind housing in finding a market bottom, he said payday loans.
“We are overbuilt in many areas,” he said.
Lockhart, 63, joined the distressed-investment unit of Atlanta-based Invesco Ltd. this year after serving as head of the FHFA. WL Ross was among nine asset managers chosen by the Treasury Department to take part in the $40 billion U.S. Public- Private Investment Program, under which taxpayer and private capital will be paired to invest in mortgage bonds.
WL Ross manages funds that own American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc. and made “substantial investments” in bond insurer Assured Guaranty Ltd., according to a statement in August announcing Lockhart’s hiring.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates–Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund said Sunday it booked a profit of $1.1 billion (U.S.) by selling the stake it took in Citigroup Inc. less than two years ago when the banking giant was strapped for cash.
The Kuwait Investment Authority said in a statement it sold the preferred shares after converting them to common stock for $4.1 billion. That works out to a gain of nearly 37 per cent on its $3 billion investment.
Calls to the Kuwait fund for further details went unanswered. A Citi spokesman declined to comment.
Gulf Arab countries’ sovereign wealth funds have been heavy investors in U.S. and European companies, using their oil wealth to buy large stakes in companies ranging from Citi to Germany’s Volkswagen AG and Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler AG.
The KIA joined other big investors – including the Government of Singapore Investment Corp. and long-time shareholder Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia – in pumping some $12.5 billion into New York-based Citi in January 2008. At the time, the bank was reeling from a huge drop in the value of its mortgage holdings.
At the same time it made its Citi investment the fund took a $2 billion stake in Merrill Lynch, which also needed cash as a result of the credit crisis.
Merrill was later bought by Bank of America Corp., which last week surprised investors by paying back $45 billion in federal bailout money. Analysts say that move puts pressure on Citi and other banks that tapped U.S. government aid to follow suit, even though they still could face further losses as consumers struggle to pay their bills.
The Kuwait fund’s move came as a surprise. In September, it said it had no intention of selling its holdings in either Citi or Bank of America in the short term because its investment policies are based "on a long-term vision."
Kuwait took its stake in Citi last year after another Gulf fund, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, paid $7.5 billion for a 4.9 per cent stake in the company.
ADIA’s holdings, known as "equity units," will begin to convert into ordinary shares starting in March next year.
A spokesman for the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, declined to comment on plans for its Citi stake.
Kuwait’s fund is not the first major Gulf investor to cash in on the sharp rebound of western banks’ shares this year.
Abu Dhabi’s International Petroleum Investment Co. made a $2.5 billion profit in June by selling part of a stake it held in London-based Barclays. Then last moth, Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, the British bank’s top shareholder, unloaded a stake worth about $2.25 billion.
Barclays turned to investors from Abu Dhabi and Qatar last November for a total injection of up to $12 billion to shore up its balance sheet rather than take on the British government as a major shareholder.
From the Star’s wire services
Because oil prices have always been directly related to the strength of the economy, a recovery might have seen headlines like these:
• The recession ends: Get ready for $100 oil
• The economy roars: $140 oil, is there an end in sight?
• Everyone in China buys a Cadillac: World tapped out
But a growing number of experts are saying that you can forget all that. For the next couple of years, they say, oil prices will remain well below $100 a barrel as the economy remains fragile and efficiency measures kick in.
"The world will never run out of oil," Deutsche Bank analysts wrote in a recent research note, echoing the old logic that the Stone Age didn’t end because the world ran out of stone. "If the oil age does end, it likely will be because we become more efficient and simply use less petroleum."
It’s this "becoming more efficient" idea that the Deutsche Bank analysts use to predict even lower oil prices in 2010 than now - an average of $65 a barrel next year compared to nearly $80 currently.
To get there, they employ a metric known as energy intensity, which basically measures the amount of oil used in relation to the size of the economy. (Keep an eye on this term in the next couple of weeks - countries at the upcoming Copenhagen summit on climate change will use it to try to wiggle out of making any hard commitments on cutting greenhouse gases.)
The energy intensity of the U.S. economy has actually dropped by about 2% a year every year since the early 1980s. In the next couple of years Deutsche Bank expects it to decline by around 3% as people buy more fuel efficient cars and respond in other ways to the high prices of 2004-2008 and as government conservation measures kick in.
With economic growth expected to remain at a sluggish 2.5% or so over the next couple of years, that translates into an actual drop in U.S. oil consumption.
"US oil demand may have already peaked," the note said.
The bank’s numbers aren’t far off from what the government is saying either no fax payday loans.
U.S. oil consumption, which peaked at almost 21 million barrels a day in 2005, is now under 19 million barrels a day, according to the Energy Information Administration.
"The last time we had a decline in consumption of this magnitude was 1979-82," said Tancred Lidderdale, an oil analyst at EIA. U.S. oil demand isn’t expected to near 21 million barrels a day again until 2029.
The rest of the world
But what about Chinese demand? Speculators? Geopolitical tensions? Or any one of the myriad reasons cited for rising oil prices?
Chinese economic growth at this quick rate is not sustainable, said Addison Armstrong, director of market research at Tradition Energy, an energy brokerage in Stamford, Conn. Besides, he says, the Chinese will likely reduce the energy intensity of their economy even faster than America.
And by the time hundreds of million of Chinese are buying cars, the fleet could very well be all-electric.
As for speculators, Armstrong said credit tightening is making it harder for them to make the big bets on energy that were seen before the crisis.
And geopolitical flare-ups in oil-rich nations are much less apt to affect prices now that the world has the ability to produce much more oil than it is using. Indeed, this lack of spare capacity was an underlying reason oil prices got so high in 2008. That year, spare capacity hit a low of 1 million barrels a day, a mere tanker load away from demand exceeding supply.
Now that number is almost 4 million barrels a day, and expected to grow to 4.5 million barrels a day by the middle of next year.
"There’s so much spare capacity right now," said Armstrong, noting that oil prices in the $70 range are still high enough to insure new supplies are being brought online. "It’s very difficult to see prices much higher."
Experts on retail sales are obsessed with Thanksgiving weekend — particularly the Black Friday frenzy.
Most pundits agree that the start of the season was just ho-hum. But if you examine the details, you’ll come across all sorts of disagreement over exactly how things have gone. Why is it so hard to judge how many shoppers turned out, and how much they spent?
Here are some answers.
How important is Thanksgiving weekend as a predictor of the season?
The day after Thanksgiving is the traditional start of the season. In recent years, Black Friday has been the busiest shopping day of the year. But it’s not considered a predictor of the rest of the season, since it accounts for 10 percent of total holiday sales.
Still, pundits study the weekend’s receipts to decipher shoppers’ mind-sets. And if stores have a weak start, chances are slim that they will be able to make up for lost sales.
What makes this season’s kickoff particularly hard to assess?
One major factor is that stores have increasingly been hawking deals and offering expanded hours throughout November. That has likely diluted sales for the holiday weekend.
Parsing the data got even trickier because for the first time, major merchants offered early morning Black Friday specials on their websites at the same time as in their stores, as they aimed to compete with pure online retailers.
That helped boost online sales on Thursday and Friday, which rose 11 percent compared with a year ago, according to comScore Inc same day payday loans., an Internet research company. Also, more stores, like Old Navy, were open on Thanksgiving.
"Black Friday was definitely expanded. It wasn’t as concentrated," said Bill Lewis, executive vice president of Karabus Management, a retail advisory firm. He noted that heavy online buying likely depressed store traffic.
What type of data has been out there in recent days? Any contradictions?
The National Retail Federation released data on spending and traffic late Sunday, based on an online poll of 5,000 shoppers. The group extrapolated that total spending reached $41.2 billion for Thursday through Sunday, up 0.5 percent from a year ago; it reported 195 million people were visiting stores and websites, compared with 172 million a year ago.
Meanwhile, research firm ShopperTrak released data that showed customer counts actually declined 1.1 percent for the Friday-through-Sunday weekend, but showed sales were up a more robust 1.6 percent.
When will we get a full picture of the start of this year’s holiday season?
Major retailers’ individual sales reports should offer some sense, even though most figures exclude online business.
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