Events

PriceGrabber, a leading distributed e-commerce platform and shopping site, conducted its Winter Holiday Shopping Survey and found that 69% of consumers plan to shop at the same retailers at which they shopped last year.

Middletown, Wis. -- American Girl, a division of Mattel, announced its first expansion outside the United States, with plans to open two experiential in-store boutiques in partnership with Indigo Books & Music Inc., Canada’s largest book, gift, and specialty retailer.

Opening in spring 2014, the new American Girl retail stores will be located in Indigo’s Yorkdale Shopping Centre, Toronto, and Robson Street, Vancouver.

Toys ‘R’ Us plans to launch an online version of its “The Great Big Toys"R"Us Wish Finder” holiday catalog Nov. 2. The retailer is also launching The Toys"R"Us Wish List Wizard, a free iOS and Android app that turns parents’ smartphones into a scanner and lets kids scan items they want in-store for automatic inclusion on a digital wish list.

Winston-Salem, N.C. — Krispy Kreme has announced the grand opening of a new Doughnut Factory in Doraville, Ga., for Oct. 29. The first 100 guests in line will receive free doughnuts for a year and commemorative T-shirts. The newly constructed, freestanding 2,300-sq.-ft. store includes a drive-through.

Today, Krispy Kreme operates more than 785 locations in 22 countries around the world.

Dodgeville, Wis. — Lands’ End has announced the opening of its first standalone store within a shopping mall — in the Yorktown Center Mall in Lombard, Ill., a Chicago suburb.

The store is slated to open on Nov. 15. For each sale made during the Grand Opening Event, the store will donate $50 to the Glen Ellyn food Pantry for a Thanksgiving Food Box meal.

Queens, N.Y. — The Fresh Meadows neighborhood in Queens is getting an Unleashed by Petco store. The new store will begin its grand opening celebrations Saturday, Nov. 9 and continue the celebrations over two more weekends.

The Fresh Meadows Unleashed buy Petco will host several community gatherings throughout the year. There will be adoption events aiming to unite the area’s shelter pets with forever homes, Pug-a-Palooza, local dog meet-ups, contests and social gatherings.

Arkansas is home to some fine barbeque establishments, but Sam’s Club home state was shut out last week when the top prizes were handed out in the retailer’s third annual National BBQ Tour.

Austin, Texas - The current state of the economy will drive 41% of consumers to look for ways to save money on their holiday shopping this year, seeking out bargains and coupons. According to the new annual holiday shopping and coupon usage survey from Offers.com, about half of people (51%) make a holiday gift list, and 62% set a budget for their holiday gift shopping.

Other holiday-related findings from the survey include:

Gillette has kicked off its official partnership with Movember by inviting men and women to join Team Gillette, and enlisted Kate Upton as team captain.

The star-studded lineup of Movember supporters also includes Green Bay Packers linebacker Clay Matthews, New York Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz, New England Patriots wide receiver Danny Amendola and New England Revolution defender Kevin Alston.

New York – Despite many forecasts of a gloomy holiday season for retailers, Deloitte is predicting an increase in consumer spending. Deloitte's 28th annual survey of holiday spending intentions and trends indicates shoppers surveyed plan to spend an average of $421 on holiday gifts this year, up from $386 last year. They also expect to buy an average of 12.9 gifts, ending a five-year decline in the number of gifts they plan to purchase.