Consumer Confidential: Retail sales, airline fees, Chinese chicken

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Here’s your wishing-on-a-star Wednesday roundup of consumer news from around the Web:

-- Apparently consumers didn’t get the memo about how they’re supposed to be propping up the economy. Retail sales declined 0.5% in June from a month before, indicating that we’re still minding our cash as the never-ending recession rumbles ever onward. Analysts say economic recovery, such as it is, continues, but has shifted into a lower gear amid growing worries about unemployment. Those worries may be bolstered by a Commerce Department report showing that business inventories rose a bit in May. More stuff on shelves means less demand for new workers.

-- This just in: Airlines aren’t doing enough to disclose stupid fees for checked bags and stuff. The Government Accountability Office says officials should do more to ensure that airlines make nickel-and-dime fees clear to passengers. ‘Making complete, clear and uniform information on airline fees available through travel agents and airline websites would enable passengers to make fully informed choices,’ the GAO says. Airlines collected $7.8 billion in fees last year, up from $5.5 billion in 2008, according to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

-- Here’s a fun fact: Yum Brands, parent company of KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, opens a new KFC branch in China almost every day. That’s a lot of chicken. Yum says profits from its operations in China surged 33% in the second quarter. The company has more than 36,000 fast-food restaurants in more than 100 countries and generates about 60% of its profits overseas. Yum now has almost 3,000 KFC outlets in 650 Chinese cities, not to mention about 560 Pizza Hut branches. It hopes to eventually open at least 20,000 fast-food outlets in mainland China. It’s a small world after all.

-- David Lazarus