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Holiday Forecast: Will earlier Hanukkah fuel even bigger November sales?
October will be over in a flash, and with it, all eyes will be on the holiday season, which is measured from November 1 through December 31.
The 2015 retail calendar has several distinctions, as we saw Memorial Day fall on the earliest possible date and Labor Day on the latest possible date. This holiday season, there are 28 days between Thanksgiving (not counting the actual day) and Christmas, which is an average amount for the period separating the two holidays.
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Report: How ready are U.S. retailers for EMV? Not very.
The overwhelming majority of merchants are not ready for the shift to EMV.
Only 27% of U.S. merchants will be EMV-ready by the October 1st liability shift, down from the 34% estimated in March, according to a survy by The Strawhecker Group (TSG).
By December 2015, 44% of U.S. merchants are expected to adopt EMV, however EMV-readiness will not reach a threshold of least 90% until 2017— more than 15 months after the shift.

