holiday sales

As the Christmas passed and the stores are removing their decorations customers are about to put aside their wallets again. The sales boom recorded during Thanksgiving and Christmas season was not a sign of consumer spending resurrection, say analysts and shoppers themselves.

"At this point I refuse to put anything on credit. If I don't have the money, I don't buy it," said Jeff McErlain, a Brooklyn, New York, musician shopping at upscale department store Saks on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue on Wednesday.

The economy still has not recovered completely from the lows that it fell to over the last year. Despite the poor economy, there are signs that things are slowly moving back to normal and shoppers this holiday season were spending money.
Black Friday shopping grew 11% compared to 2008 both online and in retail stores. ComScore reported that online shopping for 2009 was expected to hit $28.8 billion compared to the $28 billion spent online for the 2008 holiday season.

LML Payment Systems shares rose on above-average volume as traders speculated that the payment processing services provider could benefit from an increase in holiday sales.
LML Payment Systems rose as MasterCard Advisors' SpendingPulse showed that U.S. holiday sales rose 3.6% between Nov. 1 and Dec. 24, compared with a year-ago decline of 2.3%.
Beanstream Internet Commerce, a subsidiary of LML Payment Systems, counts Best Buy among its key customers, leading some traders to speculate that LML's fourth-quarter results will benefit from a ramp up in online sales.