Check out what women buy when they get tired of being a frugalista: boots, plaid and outerwear. 

Those were some of the products that helped October U.S. retail sales improve from a year ago, when the unfolding financial meltdown had shoppers fearing a second Great Depression.

“Frugal fatigue is setting in,” said NPD Group analyst Marshal Cohen. After a year of scrimping, he added, the numbers suggest that some women are going in for a little retail fix.

“Women (not only moms) are shopping their closets, discovering new and fresh looks and filling in with some key updates,” he said.

But selective shopping is not enough to ease worries about the all-important holiday sales.

Thomson Reuters research shows that while October sales rebounded, results from individual retailers were mixed.

Also in the basket:

Warnaco beats estimates; Liz Claiborne misses

Children’s Place October same-store sales beat estimates

CVS says won’t meet pharmacy benefits view in 2010

US commercial real estate to bottom in 2010-survey

Productivity at 6-year high, jobless claims fall

Wine sales at restaurants and bars are falling as diners trade down to less expensive options or skip wine altogether to save a buck.  But some restaurants are cooking up contrarian strategies to squeeze sales from the vine.

California Pizza Kitchen took its wine list more upscale and wine sales followed.

The pizza chain launched the new wine list on Oct. 5. It includes Cakebread Cellars Chardonnay, La Crema Pinot Noir and Stags’ Leap Merlot for around $10 a glass.

“This is us going back to our roots. When we first opened CPK, (in 1985) part of the concept was we that we would have familiar wines at unfamiliar prices,” said Rick Rosenfield, CPK’s co-chief executive officer.

Morton’s steakhouse, on the other hand, is working the downturn in fine wine prices to its advantage.

It is hitting auctions as luxury restaurants clear cellars and striking exclusive relationships with wineries like Charles Krug, Gundlach Bundschu and Liverano when they have unsold premium wine.

Its limited-time Krug 1881,  which sells for around $13 a glass, is the restaurant’s top-selling Cabernet, said Tylor Field, Morton’s vice president of wine and spirits.

While wine sales at retail continue to outpace those in restaurants, Charles Krug’s Peter Mondavi Jr said the winery recently has made inroads at restaurants like  Smith & Wollensky, Roy’s and Landry’s.

(Photo/Reuters)

Check out the probable lower level of tips for service providers during the holidays.

Chalk up tips for cleaning people, school teachers, barbers, mail carriers and others as another probable victim of the weak U.S. economy, according to a new poll conducted by Consumer Reports magazine.  

The magazine polled Americans about their tipping habits during the 2008 holidays and again in October and found 26 percent of Americans who usually tip or give a gift to a service provider said they would spend less this holiday season. Just 6 percent planed to spend more.

“Families are looking for ways to balance their financial concerns with the need to thank people who have helped them during the year,” Tobie Stanger, senior editor at Consumer Reports, said in a statement. “This year, tipping is more of a challenge than ever, but CR’s survey shows that people are still trying to do it, for the most part.”

The average value of tips (i.e. some were gifts instead of cash or gift cards) varied by occupation, with a cleaning person at $50, a child’s teacher and a hairdresser at $20, and a manicurist at $10, according to Consumer Reports.

Some readers told the magazine they plan to still say thanks with a card or homemade gift.

Also in the basket:

Food the focus as Wal-Mart starts holiday giving

Kraft quarterly results could make a case to Cadbury

ADM profit soars past Wall Street estimates

Polo 2nd-qtr profit tops Street view

Walgreen October sales up a bit more than expected

Energizer quarterly profit falls

(Reuters photo)

Talk about a disconnect.

Experts say U.S. economic growth has returned, signaling the end of the longest and deepest recession since the Great Depression.

But the good news for Wall Street — where shares have been running up — is showing no signs of trickling down to Main Street, where unemployment is flirting with 10 percent, foreclosures continue to rise and record numbers of families now depend on government-issued food stamps to make ends meet.

“For every person out of work, for every family facing foreclosure, for every small business facing a credit crunch, the recession remains alive and acute,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in testimony to a congressional committee.

“Many people you might have called middle class or working class before have been ground down toward poverty or even destitution,” said author Barbara Ehrenreich, who has chronicled America’s working poor during her career.

While most Americans either fret about a job loss or deal with the financial devastation of joblessness, the income gap between the super rich in the United States and the average Joe is the largest since the 1920s. Nearly one-sixth of the U.S. population is uninsured. And, contrary to popular belief, Americans are less likely to move to a higher financial status than people who live in “socialist” countries like Germany, Canada, France or Sweden.

Many economists, who warn that the U.S. economy is in for a “jobless recovery,” caution that the turnaround is on fragile ground.

“Sure the economy’s standing up on its own legs again, but for how long once the government stimulus starts to fade?  That’s the million dollar question for the nation’s unemployed, all 15.1 million of them sitting idle through no fault of their own,” said Chris Rupkey, an economist with Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi in New York.

“We’ve got a long way to go,” U.S. President Barack Obama said.

(Additional reporting by Emily Kaiser; Reuters photo)

Check out the tale of two cities in the retail world.

We are in the heart of the earnings season and every day brings reports that offer grist for both sides of the argument about whether the recovery has begun.

For the optimists, we have sports clothing and footwear maker Under Armour, which posted a stronger-than-expected quarter and raised its outlook, and yoga clothing and athletic gear maker Lululemon Athletica, which raised its forecast.

Meanwhile, DineEquity, home of the Rooty Tooty Fresh ‘N Fruity breakfast at IHOP, topped Wall Street’s expectations due to lower costs, and better sales and more efficient staffing allowed outdoor gear retailer Cabela’s to post stronger-than-expected earnings.

On the other side of the tug-of-war, pessimists can point to VF Corp. The maker of such brands as the North Face, Vans, Wrangler and Lee missed analysts’ expectations and said consumer spending would remain challenged.

Meanwhile, Winn-Dixie posted a wider loss and gave a weak 2010 outlook as recession-hit consumers shopped for fewer items on visits to the supermarket chain, and Limited Brands, the operator of the Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works chains, warned that its October sales are trending below expectations.

The market weighed in as S&P 500 index futures edged higher on Tuesday as better-than-expected earnings offset worries that the market’s seven-month rally was reaching its end.

Also in the basket:

PepsiCo wins EU approval to buy two bottlers

Analyst: Store Closures Predicted to Peak in ‘10 (WWD, subscription required)

Men’s Wearhouse to spiff up K&G stores (New York Post)

(Reuters photo)

JC Penney stores in the United States and Puerto Rico are going exclusive with Liz Claiborne Inc’s namesake brand and celebrity designer Isaac Mizrahi will sell his upscale Liz Claiborne New York line only on QVC, a TV shopping network.

The moves from Liz Claiborne were seen by some as a downward shift to mass-market retail channels and came as department store orders for Liz Claiborne’s products have fallen during what has become the longest recession since the Great Depression.

Analysts said the JC Penney deal is more lucrative for Liz Claiborne and signals the end of a decades-long relationship between Liz’s main brand and the Macy’s department store chain – which didn’t exactly go quietly.

“The Liz Claiborne brand has sold poorly in recent years and has continued to decline. As a result, we could not justify expanding it at Macy’s,” a Macy’s spokesman said.

JC Penney is known in the United States for stressing affordability and discounts while higher-end department stores like Nordstrom or Saks carry more designer merchandise and higher price tags. Macy’s tends to be somewhere in the middle of the two extremes, but lately has been discounting aggressively and focusing on everyday values.

Liz Claiborne, which recently hired a turnaround firm, said its “bold steps” would  “further the revitalization” of the Liz Claiborne brand and “significantly alter its earnings trajectory.”

The agreement with JC Penney begins in August 2010. The Liz Claiborne New York line will partner with QVC after this year’s holiday season.

Mizrahi is no stranger to the small screen — or the silver screen. The outspoken designer currently is co-hosting Bravo’s “The Fashion Show” and was the subject of the 1995 documentary film “Unzipped.” 

While Mizrahi is not the first celebrity to pitch products on a home shopping channel, he did break new ground in 2003 with his exclusive women’s apparel and accessory line for Target.

His QVC show called “Isaac Mizrahi Live!” debuts in December and will sell Liz Claiborne New York apparel, accessories and home goods.

(Photo/Reuters)

Check out the unexpected increase in September same-store sales at U.S. retailers.

Providing hope that demand may be improving ahead of the holiday shopping season, retailers posted a surprise 0.6 percent increase last month in stores open at least a year, instead of the 1.1 percent decline analysts had expected.

And International Council of Shopping Centers sees October same-store sales even with a year ago. TJX Cos, which operates the T.J. Maxx and Marshalls chains, cited strong momentum heading into October.

“The consumer is dipping their toe back into the discretionary waters right now, but just their toe,” said Retail Metrics President Ken Perkins.

Among the retailers posting better-than-expected results were Aeropostale, Kohl’s, Children’s Place and American Eagle Outfitters. Many others posted declines that were not as weak as expected.

While this year’s later Labor Day holiday pushed a good chunk of sales from August into September, analysts had wondered if rising unemployment would weigh more heavily on spending.  However, sales of clothing for the back-to-school season fueled many retailers’ performances, and the number of U.S. workers filing jobless claims fell more than expected last week.

But the economy is not out of the woods yet. Holiday spending could be further constrained by consumer aversion to debt, as total U.S. consumer credit posted a deeper-than-expected drop in August, suggesting consumers are opting to cut debt rather than spend.

Also in the basket:

Liz Claiborne in exclusive deal with J.C. Penney

PepsiCo profit tops expectations

Barnes & Noble sees same-store sales decline

Marriott beats estimates on summer demand

(Reuters photo)

National Hockey League teams put the freeze on ticket prices this season.

The average price for general tickets in the NHL ticked up just 0.1 percent to $51.41, according to Team Marketing Report (TMR), a sports marketing firm that tracks ticket costs in the major North American sports leagues. After adjusting Canadian prices to current exchange rates, the average cost of a ticket rose by just 5 cents.  

In the previous three years, the average NHL ticket cost rose 5.1 percent (2008-2009), 7.7 percent (2007-2008) and 3.7 percent (2006-2007), TMR said.

Fourteen teams kept prices unchanged from last year and six saw their averages decline, according to TMR.

Meanwhile, the average Fan Cost Index (FCI) – the cost of a family of four to attend a game — rose 1.7 percent to $301, TMR said. The FCI includes the cost of four tickets, two small draft beers, four small soft drinks, four hot dogs, parking, two game programs and two caps.

The average premium ticket is $118.63, TMR said.

The recession has forced sports leagues to rethink prices as consumers cut spending on tickets as well as food and souvenirs once at an event. The National Football League has had to black out local broadcasts in some markets due to a lack of sellouts, while the cost of tickets in the secondary market for Major League Baseball first-round playoff games are down as much as 50 percent in some markets. 

In the NHL rankings, the highest average price belongs to the Toronto Maple Leafs at $117.49, up 10.2 percent from last year, TMR said. The team’s FCI also is the highest at $585.87. The defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins raised their prices 8 percent on average to $55.55.

Teams with double-digit percentage declines in average price were the Boston Bruins (off 10.5 percent), New Jersey Devils (off 15.9 percent) and the  Tampa Bay Lightning (down 16.5 percent), TMR said. The Dallas Stars had the lowest average at $35.66, a decline of 5.7 percent from last season, while the Lightning’s FCI was the lowest at $221.04, down 12.4 percent.

(Reuters photo)

Check out the better-than-expected profit at Walgreen.

The largest U.S. drugstore chain saw shares rise 10 percent as its fourth-quarter profit benefited from a make-over that includes sprucing up stores and cutting jobs.

Walgreen also announced a new plan to promote 90-day prescriptions available at its stores as an alternative to the mail-order programs favored by many insurance programs.

While sales rose 7.6 percent to $15.7 billion, the company, with 7,042 U.S. stores, has continued to see weak demand for general merchandise.

Also in the basket:

U.S. home prices up in July for third straight month

Starbucks debuts Via instant coffee in U.S., Canada

UK consumers tighten belts in face of GDP slump

Nestle mulls shift to ‘well-being’ company-chairman

(Reuters photo)

Check Out this slightly more optimistic holiday sales forecast.

The International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) said the 2009 U.S. holiday season is likely to be “a lot better” than last year, with sales rising roughly 1 to 2 percent.

The forecast, perhaps the most bullish yet, comes after a dismal 2008 holiday season that by some accounts was the worst in about 40 years.

Forecasts issued so far this year call for holiday sales to be flat to down versus last year, but some of those surveys use different methods for estimating sales.

The ICSC said holiday sales “in its many forms” — same store sales or total sales — could increase by about 1 percent to 2 percent, with sales at stores open at least one year rising 1 percent for the holiday shopping season of November and December.

Also in the basket:

Asian convenience stores ride the recovery

Zumiez raises Q3 earnings outlook

H&M signs Rykiel in latest high end venture

Gap co-founder Donald Fisher dead at 81

(Photo/Reuters)