Research Topic

New York -- In a Tuesday night address at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. president and CEO Mike Duke didn’t shy away from discussing the fiscal cliff, saying that the current debate is having a negative impact on consumer spending.

Los Angeles -- Survey results released Wednesday by PriceGrabber found that with a record 247 million shoppers visiting stores and websites over the Thanksgiving weekend, there are still a significant number of December shoppers this year.

Promotional activity among the nation’s leading retailers declined during November aside from several notable exceptions. There was a flurry of intense promotional activity around Thanksgiving weekend, as always, but for the months as a whole the number of inserts distributed by retailers declined 7% and the number of pages declined by 5%.

New York -- The Chase Holiday Pulse on Wednesday revealed that Green Monday, Dec. 10, sales showed a  10.7% year-over-year increase over Green Monday (Dec. 12) in 2011, mainly driven by merchant deals and discounts on popular gift items.

Washington, D.C. -- A report released Wednesday by Shop.org, a division of the National Retail Federation, found that retailers are in tune with the last-minute shipping intentions of the average consumer.

According to Shop.org’s 2012 eHoliday Study conducted by BIGinsight, 45.7% of retailers will end standard shipping promotions by Monday, Dec. 17, in direct response to the average consumer’s tendency to wait until the last minute to finish holiday shopping.

Purchase, N.Y. -- A SpendingPulse report released Wednesday by MasterCard Advisors in partnership with Wells Fargo found that spending at small retailers in November picked up a percentage point since October, showing a 5.2% year over year improvement.

This was enough to put its growth rate from October to November at 0.7%, more than the growth rate of total U.S. retail sales.

NEW YORK — All-natural, cane turbinado sugar brand Sugar In The Raw has received the 2012 Bon Appétit Seal of Approval in the category of Finishing Sugar.

The new award from Bon Appétit is a first in its 56-year history. Bon Appétit’s list of must-have ingredients, including Sugar In The Raw, was selected by the editors to celebrate their favorite products. The list appears in their December 2012 issue.

Reston, Va. -- In a report released Wednesday by comScore, Green Monday has emerged as the third heaviest online shopping day of the holiday season to date, reaching $1.275 billion in spending.

Just ahead of Green Monday are Cyber Monday at $1.465 billion and Tuesday, Dec. 4, at $1.362 billion.

For the holiday season to-date, $29.3 billion has been spent online.