Social Media

SAN BRUNO, Calif. — Walmart is looking to help holiday shoppers find the perfect gift this season with the launch of a new social shopping application.

Chicago -- Despite all of the hype surrounding mobile commerce, just 36% of chief marketing officers at retail companies have included mobile in their holiday marketing strategies this year, according to a recent BDO USA survey. And of the CMOs incorporating mobile, 84% say it accounts for less than 10% of their holiday marketing efforts. The findings are from the most recent edition of the BDO Retail Compass Survey of CMOs, which examined the opinions of 100 chief marketing officers at leading retailers located throughout the country.

London – WorldPay, the global leader in payment processing has appointed Charlotte Speller, VP global marketing, for the e-commerce division of the business.

Charlotte joins WorldPay from Sage Pay, where she was head of marketing and PR and publisher of e-commerce and payments magazine Moving Money.

Minneapolis -- Target will donate $5 million to local schools nationwide as part of the company's commitment to give $1 billion for education by the end of 2015.

Target has teamed up with "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" and its viewers to select 50 schools in need to receive a $100,000 grant. Viewers are encouraged to submit the name of a school that needs help, along with a compelling story that explains why the school should receive a grant, to "The Ellen DeGeneres Show.”

Armonk, N.Y. -- U.S. shoppers took advantage of early sales this holiday driving a 39.3% increase in online Thanksgiving day spending while setting the stage for 24.3% online growth on Black Friday compared with the same period last year, according to the fourth annual IBM Coremetrics Black Friday Benchmark study, which tracks more than a million transactions a day, analyzing terabytes of raw data from 500 retailers nationwide.

MINNEAPOLIS — Target will donate $5 million to local schools nationwide as part of the company's commitment to give $1 billion for education by the end of 2015.

Retailers who promoted their online presence as a way to avoid the crowds this past weekend were rewarded for their efforts with record sales on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday.

The holiday season is about to get underway with what is expected to be the single greatest spending orgy in the history of commerce with more than $20 billion spent on Black Friday compared with $19.3 billion last year, according to MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse.