Digital Marketing

Austin, Texas -- Nearly nine-in-10 (86%) working consumers plan to spend at least some time shopping or browsing online for gifts during work hours this Cyber Monday. A new RetailMeNot retail trends report also shows that 25% of working Americans plan to actually spend four hours or more shopping online for gifts during work hours that day.

New York — The early bird rate for Chain Store Age's 32nd annual Retail Store of the Year design competition ends on Nov. 29. Retailers, design firms, architects and suppliers are invited to submit entries for the competition, whose regular deadline for submission is December 23, 2013.

More than half of consumers plan to shop on Black Friday this year, although the number has decreased since last year. According to the Deloitte Pre-Thanksgiving Survey, 53% of 1,000 consumers polled will shop on Black Friday, compared to 63% in 2012.

Younger consumers are more likely to shop Black Friday, with 68% of weekend shoppers age 18-29 planning to shop that day and 44% of Black Friday shoppers in this age group planning to hit the stores between midnight and 5 a.m., compared to 30% of those 30 and older.

San Bruno, Calif. – Wal-Mart is providing a number of special holiday deals to online and mobile shoppers as part of an early Cyber Monday promotion that begins Saturday, Nov. 30. In addition, Walmart's mobile app customers, Facebook fans and email subscribers will be among the first to receive invitations to an early shopping event on Sunday, Dec. 1, featuring up to 20 of the best Cyber Monday items while supplies last, before they are widely available.

In keeping with the new holiday tradition of revealing promotions early, Walmart on Friday shared its range of extreme value items and free shipping offers and pushed the start of Cyber Monday to Saturday, November 30.

The headliner deal is a LG brand 55 inch, 3D LED television with a sound bar for $799 along with 200 other online specials that will last through Friday, December 6. Walmart also reduced its free shipping threshold to $35 from $50.

Cleveland -- Holiday spending expectations are in line with last year when in-store shopping accounted for 70% of spending, according to a new survey by Forest City Enterprises. The average in-store expenditure is expected to increase by 1% to about $774. The average online expenditure is expected to decrease by 0.3% to $330.

Holiday shoppers will be driven more than ever by value this year and that they expect to shift even more of their spending toward children, the study found.  

Milwaukee – Harley-Davidson is debuting a new Pinterest pinboard at Pinterest.com/harleydavidson. The pinboard features holiday gifts as well as 2014 bikes, custom items, and parts and accessories.

Starting Nov. 26 and running through Dec. 24, people can create their own pinboard with Harley-Davidson items. Harley-Davidson will pick nine weekly winners at the $25-$200 level and one $10,000 grand prize winner with no purchase necessary.

Boston – A vast majority of shoppers say meaning is the most important factor in choosing a holiday gift to purchase. According to a new survey from online marketplace CustomMade, more than 90% of buyers surveyed said that the most important factor in choosing a gift this holiday season was its meaning to the recipient, while only 18% of respondents found an item’s low price to be highly important to their purchase decision.