While shoppers from overseas are flocking to U.S. shopping meccas to exploit the weak dollar, some are playing the greenback online.
At eBay's U.S. auction site, sales by Americans to buyers in Australia, for instance, jumped 80% in October from a year earlier. Sales to Canadians jumped 45%. In Britain, where the pound has hit a 26-year peak against the dollar, visits by individuals to U.S.-based online stores rose 92% from June to October, according to British research firm PriceRunner.
While some U.S. ecommerce sites and eBay sellers won't ship outside the country (because it requires a mountain of paperwork), foreign buyers have found a way around the problem. They use private forwarding services, which receive goods at U.S. addresses and send them on.
Here in the U.S., the season may seem, well, subprime. It's hard to keep up calm composures...Totting up last week's foreclosures, nor do sunken CDOs inspire hearty ho-ho-hos.
Add to those a plunging buck: How long will it be out of luck? But for a nanosec, what say we stow the doom and gloom away and summon better times, not worse. With this, a modest yuletide verse.
For us working stiffs, well, peace, and no more U.S. debt, increase. A White House race that's not just ads or faux debates or hanging chads. For readers, Web or otherwise, a font that doesn't strain your eyes. And no more news of Britney Spears for 10, no, make that 50 years. For well-behaving girls and boys, a sleigh of not-from-China toys.
Us fortysomethings hope we gaze on an every-swelling IRA. And may well-heeled retirees, survive those 401(k) fees. Have a happy celebrate...and see you in 2008!
---Abstracted from 2007, Christmastime by Marc Miller, BusinessWeek, December 24, 2007