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Home Depot’s $300 giant skeleton drove record Halloween sales

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  • Home Deport has seen record sales numbers as the pandemic has kept customers home and led to a surge in home improvement projects. 
  • The company’s latest quarter was particularly big, and few items symbolize that success better than the wildly popular 12-foot skeleton: Executives say it sold out before October even started, despite a $300 price tag.
  • “Halloween was the strongest event we’ve ever had,” Home Depot executives said on an investor call Tuesday morning.
  • Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

In a year like 2020, it’s no surprise that a lot of people were in the market for a 12-foot giant skeleton.

The absolutely massive Halloween decoration went viral this year, and was so popular with Home Depot shoppers that it sold out before Halloween month even began.

Home Depot was the only place carrying the bony behemoth, and it helped to drive record Halloween sales for the

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Republicans home in on bias complaints.

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The committee’s chairman, a Republican, opened the hearing by attacking the power that social media companies have to moderate content on their platforms, accusing them of making politically slanted calls while hiding behind a decades-old liability shield.

“I don’t want the government to take over the job of telling America what tweets are legitimate and what are not,” said the chairman, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. “But when you have companies that have the power of government, have far more power than traditional media outlets, something has to give.”

Mr. Graham’s early comments most likely presage a bruising set of questions from the committee’s Republican members.

President Trump and his allies have spent years attacking the Silicon Valley platforms for what they say is bias against conservatives, pointing to the liberal politics of the companies’ employees and instances of moderation that affected Republicans or conservative media. Their evidence for

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25 Great Buys On Furniture, Home Decor And Kitchen Essentials

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Wayfair is known as the place to go when you want to score nice furniture and home goods at an affordable price. And, like plenty of other online retailers, the company is kicking off holiday sales early with the Wayfair Black Friday Early Access Sale.

The online retailer just released a slew of new discounted products last Friday, November 13, and will release even more on Thursday, November 26 (aka Thanksgiving). That sale will run through Monday, November 30. You’ll also score free shipping on all orders of $35 or more. Basically, there are a lot of ways to save big on furniture, outdoor gear, kitchen essentials, and home decor.

Tip: Bookmark this page and check back daily for Wayfair Black Friday updates. For more, see our guide to the best Black Friday sales and deals.

The Best Wayfair Black Friday Deals Available Now

All-Clad Ha1 10 Piece

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Home Depot is boosting wages and making expanded worker benefits permanent

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The housing market is booming. That’s great news for Home Depot — and its workers.



a person standing in front of a store: A customer wearing a protective mask views power drills for sale at a Home Depot Inc. store in Daly City, California, U.S., on Monday, Nov. 16, 2020. Home Depot Inc. is scheduled to release earnings figures on November 17. Photographer: Josie Norris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

© Josie Norris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
A customer wearing a protective mask views power drills for sale at a Home Depot Inc. store in Daly City, California, U.S., on Monday, Nov. 16, 2020. Home Depot Inc. is scheduled to release earnings figures on November 17. Photographer: Josie Norris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Home Depot reported better-than-expected sales and earnings Tuesday, and the company is planning to invest $1 billion annually on increased worker benefits. That’s on top of the $1.7 billion in benefits the company has already granted this year in response to Covid-19.

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Home Depot unveiled temporary programs during the coronavirus pandemic such as expanded paid time off and weekly bonuses. But the company has decided to give hourly workers a permanent pay increase as the housing market continues to thrive.

Sales at

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Refugee women come to KC furniture maker’s aid as business shifts amid COVID crisis

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A few years back, and halfway through a Master’s degree in Business Administration, Kansas City native John Pryor realized he didn’t want to spend his life in a “digital nothingness.” So he left his corporate tech job in Boston and moved home, looking to recover from the stress of the tech world by retreating to a workshop where he could craft furniture by hand.

Creating tangible things, he said, “made me come alive.”

Earlier this year the 40-year-old opened a showroom called Madison Flitch where he could display and sell his artisan furniture pieces.

Then the pandemic hit.

Pryor, like many others, was hit hard by the ongoing global coronavirus pandemic. He feared his budding business wouldn’t be able to survive. He needed to pivot.

In the early days of the pandemic there was a desperate need for masks, so Pryor pounced, transforming his showroom into a mask-making operation.

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Home Depot Shares Fall After Expenses Climb Alongside Sales

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(Bloomberg) — Home Depot Inc. shares declined after the home-improvement retailer reported higher costs and a plan to spend $1 billion to boost annual compensation for front-line hourly employees.

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While same-store revenue, a key gauge of performance for retailers, rose 24% in the quarter ended Nov. 1, that also brought higher expenses. Cost of sales, a measure of what the company spends to generate each sale, was up 24% from a year ago, according to the statement. Part of that is due to protective gear for associates and constant cleaning of the stores.

The Atlanta-based retailer has broadly benefited amid the pandemic of 2020 as consumers divert spending that would have gone to travel and entertainment to improving their homes. Unlike other retailers, like Walmart Inc., that are reporting fewer transactions but larger tickets, Home Depot is seeing gains in both metrics. That means shoppers are placing more

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Experts from the UK’s chicest hotels share their best home styling tips

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Oh the joy of arriving at a fancy hotel room. The immaculately-made bed, the neatly arranged toiletries in the bathroom, the promise of a clutter-free existence for a night or two. The good news is that, with a few tweaks, you can achieve five-star vibes in your own home. It doesn’t require major refurbishment, but a bit of creative thinking, says Ian Taylor, owner of Bath hotels The Bird and Homewood. “It’s small things like moving cushions around your home, swapping with other rooms provided the colour matches. Pink and yellow, depending on the shades, can be very effective,” he says. “You can also display collections that you may have stored in a cupboard or shelf. For instance, a stamp collection can be framed and turned into a piece of art.” With that in mind, we asked the design experts behind some of the UK’s best hotels to share their

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Impressive Earnings From Walmart, Home Depot, Apparently Not Impressive Enough To Lift Market

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Key Takeaways:

  • Walmart
    WMT
     and Home Depot
    HD
     earnings both beat Wall Street’s expectations
  • Despite impressive results, big retailers’ shares not getting much support early on
  • Retail sales for October fail to impress, adding pressure in pre-market trading

Shoppers flocked to two of the country’s largest retailers last quarter, but evidently that’s not enough to push stocks higher after yesterday’s vaccine-led rally.

Walmart (WMT) and Home Depot (HD) earnings both looked really impressive, and WMT shares gained some ground in pre-market trading ahead of the opening bell. HD shares fell, however, and major stock indices were in the red early on. This could reflect buying interest drying up a bit following record closes for the major indices yesterday, though it doesn’t necessarily change the overall positive tone. Pandemic-related anxiety also could be a factor in the weakness this morning.

WMT continues to thrive in the stay-at-home

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Home Depot earnings: Sales surge means $1 billion more for employees

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  • Home Depot Inc said Tuesday it will spend around $1 billion more on employees’ pay annually, as it benefits from a surge in demand for tools, paint, and building materials in the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • Overall net sales increased 23.2% to $33.54 billion, beating analysts’ estimate of $32.04 billion.
  • Home Depot have provided staff with temporary weekly bonuses and more hours of paid time off. Some of these will now become permanent, it said.
  • Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

Home Depot said on Tuesday it would spend about $1 billion more on employees’ compensation annually, as the home improvement chain benefits from a sustained surge in demand for tools, paint, and building materials due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

With limited options for travel or leisure activities, Americans are spending more time at home and using their discretionary income on minor home remodeling and repair work.

“Despite elevated activity for

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Maximum Space, Minimal Footprint, Battery-Electric

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MINI Vision Urbanaut is a concept car very much of our moment in time when live events are simply not happening. So, why build a concept car for presentation in the real world if you can’t have 200 people milling around drinking wine and enjoying the canapés? Urbanaut is a concept vehicle that lives only in digital ether. Like all such what-if concept vehicles, Urbanaut allowed MINI’s cooped-up designers off the

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