Coupons/ Rebates/ Pricing

DEERFIELD, Ill. — Walgreens will offer customers a mystery mobile coupon to draw them to the store on Black Friday.

“This promotion is an excellent example of how technology and innovation work together to provide customers with a great offer that increases engagement and enhances their shopping experience,” stated Sona Chawla, president of e-commerce for Walgreens. “At a time when shoppers are out looking for the best deals, we’re making it easy by sending real-time, relevant offers directly to them.”

New York -- Seventeen percent of consumers, or 41 million people, plan to take advantage of increased shopping hours on Thanksgiving hours to shop, according to the latest consumer holiday tracking survey by The International Council of Shopping Centers and Goldman Sachs.

Deerfield, Ill. -- Walgreens will be making a multichannel play for Black Friday customers through a mystery mobile coupon, the retailer announced Tuesday.

Whiting, Ind. -- Survey results released Tuesday by CouponCabin.com revealed that that 47% of Cyber Monday shoppers will spend more money online that day than they will in-store the during the rest of the holiday season. The holiday has gone mobile as well. More than one-quarter (29%) of smartphone and tablet owners plan to shop online on Cyber Monday on their devices.

PALO ALTO, Calif. — Sony Stores have joined shopkick, a real-world shopping app, to offer “kicks,” shopkick’s proprietary reward currency, to shoppers for visiting stores, browsing lookbooks or interacting with products.

Dollar General’s 10,000 plus locations will be open Thanksgiving Day from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., but it’s not taking the heat for doing so like rivals Walmart and Target.

Dollar General on Monday announced a series of online and in-store promotions, including special opening hours, designed to establish it as a holiday destination for gift givers as opposed to a convenient located stores that sell consumables.

New York -- Sixty percent of Americans plan to shop in stores or online over the Thanksgiving weekend – up from 51% in 2011, according to Deloitte’s pre-Thanksgiving survey.

Among these weekend shoppers, 63% plan to shop in stores on Black Friday and 23% plan to shop in stores on Thanksgiving day (up from 17% in last year’s survey). Shoppers expect spend an average of $286 over the holiday weekend – up 28% from the 2011 survey

The survey also indicates:

New York -- Lowe's Cos. said Monday that its third-quarter net income jumped 76%, helped by lower costs and higher revenue. Its adjusted earnings without charges and its revenue both beat Wall Street forecasts.  

Lowe's earned $396 million for the three months ended Nov. 2. That compares with $225 in the year-ago period. Revenue rose 2% to $12.07 billion from $11.85 billion. Same-store sales were up 1.8%.

Walmart has taken heat for violating some unwritten retail rule about not opening on Thanksgiving, but on Thursday it extended a benefit that many employees will find appealing.

Walmart has long offered employees a 10% discount on general merchandise, which is pretty hefty considering prices are already low. That discount is in place all year and then in December employees could also save 10% on food.

Austin, Texas -- Online coupon site RetailMeNot.com on Friday released its second annual Black Friday edition of the Shoppers Trend Report, which showed that 71% of holiday shoppers plan to spend “about the same” or “more” than they spent last year versus 63% who said "about the same" or "more" in 2011.