Coupons/ Rebates/ Pricing

Washington, D.C. -- A survey released Thursday by the National Retail Federation and conducted by BIGresearch found that up to 138 million people plan to shop Black Friday weekend (Friday, Saturday and Sunday), surpassing the 134 million who planned to do so last year.

According to the NRF 2010 Holiday Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, which polled 8,778 consumers, approximately 60 million people say they will definitely hit the stores while another 78 million are waiting to see if the bargains are worth braving the cold and the crowds.

By Charles Nicholls, [email protected]

So what can you do during the crazy holiday season to reduce shopping cart abandonment? We thought we’d put together a holiday season checklist to help you keep your customers in the shopping cart this Christmas.

Before thinking about solutions to your shopping cart abandonment problem, it’s useful to look at the reasons why customers abandon. Based on this Forrester study, you can group the top five reasons into:

New York City -- Best Buy has become the latest retailer to offer free shipping for select online orders for the holidays.

The chain said the offer, which is good through Dec. 21, is valid on hundreds of thousands of items, including all CD’s, Blu-Ray and DVD movies, as well as gaming software and accessories.

Other retailers have begun offering free shipping programs to entice shoppers to open their wallets this holiday season, including Wal-Mart Stores, J.C. Penney and Target Corp.

Minneapolis  -- Target on Tuesday became the first mass-discount retailer to make the shopkick mobile application available to its shoppers. Users of the app will receive points and other rewards, like instant mobile coupons, just for entering Target. The location-based retail app is available in 242 stores in the Chicago; Dallas; Los Angeles; Miami; Minneapolis; New York City and San Francisco/Silicon Valley markets.