Coupons/ Rebates/ Pricing

Millennials shop differently than their parents, but when it comes to the end result, they are looking for the same thing: a great deal.

According to the Blackhawk Engagement Solutions’ “Millennials Disrupt Shopping” report, based on two separate surveys of 500 millennial consumers each, smartphones are a dominant method of connection to the web for millennials, with 89% using them to connect to the Internet. This compares to 75% using laptops, 45% using tablets and 37% using desktop computers.

The number of retail chief marketing officers (CMOs) using mobile in their holiday marketing keeps growing.

According to the new BDO Retail Compass Survey of CMOs, 65% of 100 retail CMOs surveyed will tap into mobile, up from 49% in 2014 and the third straight year of growth. And of those using mobile, 34% will focus most heavily on delivering mobile coupons. Respondents plan to focus 12% of their marketing efforts on mobile technology.

For the second time this year, Target’s e-commerce site crashed due to exceptionally high levels of activity related to a major sales promotion.

The Target site went down the morning of Cyber Monday, Nov. 30. According to reports, the crash was actually a controlled restriction of the site by Target in response to extremely heavy volumes of visitors looking for holiday bargains.

A new day, every day. That’s what an unusual new retail concept in Manhattan promises shoppers.

It’s called The New Stand, and it’s located underground in the Union Square subway station, near the entrance to the L train. A second location is set to open, this one above ground, at Brookfield Place, a shopping center in lower Manhattan.

In addition to the requisite comment about expecting the holidays to be highly promotional, Famous Footwear also expects the momentum it saw during back-to-school season to carry over to the fourth quarter.

Famous Footwear’s third quarter same store sales increased 4.4% and total sales increased 4.8% to $456 million, excluding the performance of the divested Shoes.com business, to represent 63% of parent company Caleres total sales of $728.6 million. Caleres is the company formerly known as Brown Shoe Company that changed its name earlier this year.

Leading footwear retailer DSW Inc. made significant omnichannel upgrades during the third quarter but warm weather kept shoppers from buying shoes in stores or online.

Sales declined 0.6% to $666 million and same store sales declined 3.9% compared to a 2.6% comp increase during the same period the prior year. Profits declined 20.7% to $39.3 million and earnings per share declined 20% to 44 cents, in line with the company’s guidance range of 41 cents to 44 cents.

First it was Black Friday encroaching on Thanksgiving. Now, Cyber Monday is bleeding into Sunday night with Walmart and Target employing new promotional strategies.

Holiday is going to have a new look this year, as retailers take a different approach to the shopping season. As a result of consumers’ overwhelming focus on price, online shopping and free shipping incentives, retailers have been forced to rethink their strategies. As part of our ongoing series of retail industry surveys, HRC Advisory recently spoke with over a dozen top U.S. retailers to gauge what’s to come for the 2015 holiday season.