Winter Holidays

Target is looking to generate excitement online this holiday season with a just-launched promotion aimed at shoppers who love subscription services like Birchbox.

Target has just launched a specially designed collection of boxes called Wonderpacks, which the retailer says are “meant to inspire and capture family fun.”

The kits, available on target.com, are curated and contain a combination of products to create experiences, from a game-packed road trip to sledding after sunset, the retailer says.

Looking back on the 2015 edition of Cyber Week, we can reminisce on big traffic, big sales … and big fails?

Several high-profile site outages hit major retailers during a period of historically heavy online shopping. While nobody would call these positive events, they do offer retailers a few valuable lessons about the need to stay one step ahead of digital customer demand.

Not Too Big to Fail

PBteen is hoping a new omnichannel collaboration with a popular teen app may appeal to a wide swath of its target market.

The retailer is teaming up with a Disney star on a new furnishings collection inspired by a trendy new app called Make Me Nails. The app was created by the star of Disney's "A Dog with a Blog," G. Hannelius. Make Me Nails is a fully-customizable nail wrap iPhone app and e-commerce platform that allows consumers to create individual nail wrap art for each finger, for the ultimate custom manicure.

Target Corp. is bringing back a beloved family film classic just in time for the holidays — and getting in some prime time high-profile marketing in the process.

The retailer has teamed up with ABC to show “Mary Poppins.” It's the first time in more than 13 years that the movie has been shown on television. The movie will be aired on Dec. 12, from 8 – 11 pm EST on ABC, which is owned by Disney.

Sears Hometown and Outlet stores narrowed its loss in the third quarter despite weak sales growth in the appliance and garden categories.

The retailer said same-store sales decreased 1.6% in the third quarter ended Oct. 31. Net sales fell 3.2% to $547.1 million as the company reported a loss of $3.8 million, or 17 cents a share, compared with a loss of $171.2 million, or $7.55 a share, a year earlier.

Barnes & Noble posted disappoint results for its second quarter, but sounded a positive note about holiday sales.

The company posted a wider-than-expected loss of $39.2 million, or 52 cents per share, for the quarter ended October 31, compared to a profit of $12.3 million, or 12 cents per share, a year ago.

Losses, adjusted to account for discontinued operations and severance costs related to the spinoff of its college bookstore division, were 28 cents per share.

Roosevelt Field in Garden City, New York, is offering shoppers an up-close look at some unusual and pricey holiday gift suggestions.

The center, owned by Simon, has teamed up with Neiman Marcus for the first ever Neiman Marcus' 2015 Fantasy Gifts public installation.

Despite overall declines in several key metrics, there were some good signs for brick-and-mortar retailers during November.

Big Lots narrowed its loss in the third quarter as the retailer attracted more shoppers to its stores with new merchandising and marketing strategies.

For the period ended Oct. 31, Big Lots reported a loss of $1.5 million, or 3 cents a share, compared with a loss of $3.4 million, or 6 cents, a year earlier. Same-store sales increased 2.6% Revenue edged up less than a percentage point to $1.12 billion.

The big news for retailers this holiday season has been the strong surge in online shopping. It’s not that high online volumes weren’t expected; estimates placed online purchases to be as high as 20% of total holiday sales this year.

It seems we’ve hit a tipping point, however, where online promotions are of equal or greater importance to Black Friday retail success than in-store promotions, and where Cyber Monday has morphed into Cyber Week.