Bumper sale now on at Yahoo!

NEWS Yahoo! is offering US shoppers discount deals over the next three days to combat sluggish post-Christmas sales. Billed by Yahoo! as the "biggest sale in internet history", prices on nearly 1,000 products and services including plane tickets, holidays, books, computers and consumer electronics have been slashed by 10 to 45 per cent. Yahoo! is also cutting start-up fees on some of its own services including geocities websites, business email, and online bill paying. Yahoo! officials said they wanted to promote the portal as a shopping destination, after sales slumped in the new year. Despite record pre-Christmas sales and the introduction of fee-based services last year, Yahoo! saw its revenues fall by 35 per cent in 2001. While most of the revenue earned on the sales merchandise will go to Yahoo!'s retail partners, the company stands to earn more advertising revenue if retailers rake it in by Friday.