A Vinton television and appliance store is calling it quits after 40 years.
Ward’s Home Appliance Center owner Linda Waybright said she’s ready to retire, and the weak economy has only encouraged her decision to close the Bypass Road store. Waybright, 68, took over the store in 2008 after founder Robert Ward died.
She talked to a few people about selling the business but said no one was interested.
The store has been losing money since the recession started, Waybright said. And competition with big-box stores is stiff, she said.
The store will close when all the inventory has been sold.
THE Rt Rev Richard Blackburn, Suffragan Bishop of Liverpool and Bishop of Warrington, held his first business lunch in the city yesterday.
Lunches have been held twice a year in Warrington for more than 25 years, but yesterday’s event, in conjunction with Mission in the Economy, in the Port of Liverpool offices of architects Austin-Smith:Lord was aimed at building relationships with Liverpool businesses and other organisations.
The lunches bring together people from the business sector, the church and voluntary sector, the local authority and other statutory agencies with a mutual interest and concern about economic issues.
Representatives from EC Harris, Built Asset Consultancy and ASL hosted the lunch and guests included Liverpool Lord Mayor Cllr Frank Prendergast.
Bishop Richard said: “I am looking forward to getting to know the Liverpool business community, and discussing issues important to them and their staff in such challenging times.”
Although more customers are expected to spill into stores this holiday season, and Black Friday will get an earlier start than usual with some stores opening as early as midnight, local retailers and analysts say they believe holiday sales will be on par with or slightly below last year. The International Council of Shopping Centers expects holiday spending of $250.2 billion on general merchandise, a 3 percent increase from a year ago.
But that doesnt mean that consumers will be shopping more, said Michael Niemira, vice president, chief economist and director of research for the ICSC. Instead, higher prices because of inflation could actually mask softer sales.
Sales are likely to be good, Niemira said. But not as strong as one year ago.
Still, retailers are doing everything they can to get shoppers in the door.
To give customers ample time to make those purchases and to get a leg-up on the competition, stores throughout the nation are opening earlier this year.
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A gauge of future economic activity rose at solid pace in October, offering hope that the U.S. economy may see stronger growth in coming months.
The Conference Board reported Friday that its index of leading economic indicators rose 0.9% last month, significantly faster than the revised 0.1% rise in September and the 0.3% increase in August.
The economy, after growing at an anemic pace of just 0.9% in the first six months of the year, grew at a 2.5% rate in the July-September quarter.
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The era of Berlusconi, Italys longest-serving postwar prime minister, is finally over. Will Italy ever recover?
How did he get to the top?
By leveraging a roguish charm and a gift for demagoguery with great wealth and influence. Berlusconi started out his career as a crooner on cruise ships, before getting a law degree and starting a local cable TV company. He eventually grew that company into Italy’s biggest media empire. Along the way, he bought a soccer team, AC Milan, and then founded a political party he called Forza Italia (Go Italy), after a popular fan chant for the national team. When vast bribery scandals in the early 1990s swept away the parties that had dominated the country’s politics, many Italians saw Berlusconi as the perfect antidote to corruption: an independent, billionaire businessman who couldn’t be bought.
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