NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. retailers are in for a much better year as the economy improves, but stubborn unemployment and high consumer debt levels will limit the extent of the recovery, industry experts said on Monday. Moody's Economy.com Chief Economist Mark Zandi said the economy's improvement would pick up speed this year. He forecast that sales ...

A research firm confirmed Monday that the nation's stores had a respectable sales gain for the holiday shopping season compared with last year's steep decline. ShopperTrak, which is based in Chicago, said Monday that sales for November and December rose 1.7 percent and customer counts ...

Shoppers spent heavily during the week ended Saturday, both before and after Christmas, after a snow storm during the last weekend of the holiday shopping season led to pent-up demand. Retail sales rose 8.8 percent during the week ending Dec. 26, according to ...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The day after Christmas was the second-biggest shopping day during the U.S. holiday season, with $7.9 billion spent, even though traffic in stores fell 6.6 percent from a year ago, ShopperTrak said on Wednesday. Only the day after Thanksgiving, or "Black Friday," was busier in terms of traffic and sales, at $10.66 billion, the ...