Winter Holidays

Early indicators point to retailers having an historically strong Cyber Monday.

According to the Adobe Digital Index, as of 10 a.m. ET on Monday, Nov. 30, Cyber Monday online sales had already reached $490 million. Considering Cyber Monday online sales in 2014 reached a total of around $2 billion, and early Cyber Monday sales were tracking ahead of the prior year by 14%, this is a very possible start to a record-breaking day.

Digital media company Mashable and Visa are doing a little mashing of their own to launch a new online retail entity.

Three leading retailers suffered varying degrees of difficulty with their e-commerce sites during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

Black Friday may not be what it used to be in the United States, but the tradition has caught on big time across the pond, according to a report by the New York Times.

The BBC reported that shoppers in different parts of the country experienced gridlock, biting, pinching, punching, kicking and merchandise flying through the air as shoppers leapt over barriers to get their hands on heavily discounted items, the report said.

Consumer spending across digital channels showed significant year-over-year growth over this year's Thanksgiving weekend.

According to data from ComScore, desktop spending surpassed $1 billion on both Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Consumers sitting at desktop PCs spent a total of $1.1 billion, up 9% from $1.01 billion in 2014. On Black Friday, desktop spending grew 10% to $1.66 billion from $1.5 billion.

When retailers execute their IT and CRM strategies properly, the holiday shopping season is a joyous time of profits and customer engagement. But why let all the festivities end on Dec. 25?

By properly leveraging solutions and strategies, retailers can extend the season of consumer goodwill (and spending) right into the New Year. As “Cyber Week” fades into memory, let’s focus on the week (or weeks) after the end of the traditional holiday season. Here are three suggestions to keep that holiday spirit alive a little longer this year.

Pier 1 Imports is celebrating the holidays with two unusual pop-up experiences.

The home décor retailer is creating a life-sized, pop-up book installation, open to the public from December 2 – 6, in downtown Manhattan.

It also is sending a limited edition, holiday pop-up catalog, created in collaboration with award-winning paper engineer Bruce Foster, to select customers. To see a video of the pop-up catalog, click here.

When it comes to return policies, Nordstrom and Forever 21 couldn’t be further apart.

At least that’s according to an annual survey of return policies by GOBankingRates.com. The study rated Nordstrom as offering the best return policies of 2015, with Forever 21 offering the worst.

“Return policies should be a big consideration for holiday shoppers — two-thirds of people return at least one holiday gift,” said Elyssa Kirkham, lead reporter on the GOBankingRates study.

Huge numbers of shoppers feasted on deals over Thanksgiving weekend, but how and when Americans did so has forever changed, as online activity exceeded store visits.

Huge numbers of shoppers feasted on deals over Thanksgiving weekend, but how and when Americans did so has forever changed, as online activity exceeded store visits.

Retailers such as Walmart, Target, Best Buy and Macy’s spoke of well executed promotional strategies that leveraged their physical and digital presence and those insights were validated by data from the National Retail Federation’s Thanksgiving Weekend Survey conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics.