Marketing Tactics

As holiday shoppers hunted for online deals Thanksgiving weekend the Overstock.com Web site provided fertile hunting grounds.

The retailer said its sales between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday increased 23 percent compared to the same period the prior year. In addition to new customers, the increase was driven by an 8 percent increase in average individual order size. Cyber Monday sales increased 24 percent while Thanksgiving day saw the largest gain, up 38 percent off of a smaller initial base than Cyber Monday.

Social media is front and center at Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Stores this holiday season with the retailer tapping into customers’ desire to share with the introduction of the Holiday Hub.

New York — Swedish fashion giant H&M’s higher-end brand COS will make its New York debut on Friday, in the SoHo section of Manhattan. It’s the brand’s second U.S. store—the first, in Los Angles, opened in October. 
  COS,  known for its clean lines and minimalist look, targets a more sophisticated customer than the more value-priced H&M.  The SoHo store has a upmarket feel and gallery-like look, enhanced by the use of glass and white-washed wood.
 

Laguna Hills, Calif. — Heslin Holdings, Inc., a privately owned commercial real estate investment and development firm, has purchased 1640 Rio Rancho Blvd., aretail property located in Rio Rancho, a city within the major metropolitanregion of Albuquerque, N.M. The firm will redevelop and re-tenant the property as part of a value-add investment strategy. Additionally, the firm has announced plans to invest up to $100 million in commercial properties in 2015.

Seasonal excitement at seven of Gander Mountain’s 154 stores is being driven by a train-themed merchandising initiative called the Holiday Express.

In a first-of-its-kind effort, seven stores in Florida, Minnesota, Missouri, New York and Virginia feature the large seasonal display filled with activities and an area where kids can have a free photo taken with Santa.

Fresh & Easy, the former Tesco-owned grocery format, is testing a dramatically new look at seven-plus stores in the Las Vegas market.

The stores have been remodeled with a more modern feel and layout and a greater emphasis on ready meal solutions, with such features as a “Fresh to Go” hot food bar, a pizza oven, a coffee bar and made-to-order sandwiches. There's also a revamped product selection with lower fixtures and a more abundant selection of fresh food. 

San Francisco — Shopping activity increased slightly from October in November 2014, but slumped compared to November of the previous year. Monthly retail benchmarks from in-store analytics provider Euclid reveal that  traffic lagged significantly throughout the month, with Black Friday also failing to match the previous year as deals were more distributed across time and channels.