Analyst: Americans rack up credit card debt after years of cutting back …

Group makes smaller purchases based on short-term needs …

While analysts reported a decrease in shopping trips in 2009 based on the economic crisis and consumers' shifting toward bulk purchases and private label selection, new research from WSL Strategic Retail illustrates a new shift in shopping patterns. …

While analysts reported a decrease in shopping trips in 2009 based on the economic crisis and consumers' shifting toward bulk purchases and private label selection, new research from WSL Strategic Retail illustrates a new shift in shopping patterns. …

While consumers around the world are more confident about the year ahead, Americans still seem relatively unconvinced that there will be drastic improvement. …

This holiday season will be a difficult one for many shoppers. Nielsen reports that U.S. consumers continue to make fewer shopping trips at packaged-goods retailers. …

The home front has become the battlefront in the consumer's war against shrinking incomes and budgets. …

Dollar stores, one of the few categories of retail winner during 2009 (besides Wal-Mart), keep piling on the positive numbers. Dollar General Co. reported numbers for its second fiscal quarter on Thursday, turning in an 8.6 percent increase in same-store sales compared with 2Q08. Its quarterly net income increased 238 percent. …

Alexandra Cha no longer works at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration designing optics for space; nor does she teach physics and astronomy anymore at Bryn Mawr College, her alma mater, despite holding a doctorate in astrophysics and years invested in that demanding field. …

How will the store of the future look? Will small store formats, such as Tesco's new Fresh & Easy grocery stores, OfficeMax's Mini Marts and the just-announced Best Buy Mobile stores, take hold? asks RetailWire.com. …