Winter Holidays

Seattle – Amazon.com will start offering Black Friday deals on Friday, Nov. 21, and adding new deals as often as every 10 minutes for eight straight days. Amazon will introduce three Deals of the Day starting on Thanksgiving at midnight, as well as three more on Black Friday, in addition to thousands of limited-time Lightning Deals.   

Portland, Ore. – Seven in 10 (71%) consumers intend to purchase at least one gift card  from an online website or mobile website/app during the upcoming holiday season, while 74% will buy at least one digital gift card. According to new data from POS solutions provider InComm, 85% of respondents age 18-35 agree that they’re likely to purchase at least one digital gift card this holiday season  

Nashville - Kirkland’s Inc. reported net income of $1.3 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2014, a 30% increase from $1 million the same quarter in the previous fiscal year. Higher gross profit helped boost net income.   The retailer beat Wall Street expectations with net income as well as with net sales of $117.2 million, up 10% from $106.1 million.  

Best Buy shared an optimistic view of the holiday season after posting a 3.2% third quarter comp increase at U.S. stores, but offered plenty of reasons why profitability could prove challenging.

As Dollar Tree moves forward with its acquisition of Family Dollar, the company reported an increase in same-store sales and expressed a favorable holiday outlook.

Dollar Tree's earnings per share increased 19% to $0.69 and its revenue increased 11.2% to $2.1 billion compared to the third quarter of fiscal 2013; these results were driven by comparable-store sales increasing 5.9% during the quarter compared to an increase of 3.1% in the prior-year period.

In an effort to create even more buzz for its holiday promotions, Macy’s will give away $1 million in prizes during Black Friday weekend.  

Using the Macy’s mobile app, customers shopping in-store will be able to scan QR codes to enter the giveaway during doorbuster hours, beginning at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day through 1 p.m. on Nov. 28, and then again on Saturday, Nov. 29, from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m.

As the popularity of the Rainbow Loom waned this year so did sales at Michaels where third quarter comps declined 0.8% compared to the prior year.

Ross Stores didn’t let a surprisingly strong third quarter comp increase go to its head and maintained a cautious view of consumer spending.

Sales at the company increased 8% to nearly $2.6 billion and same store sales increased 4%. Net income increased to $193 million, or 93 cents a share, from $172 million, or 80 cents a share.

New York - Amazon is once again tops in online customer satisfaction, but its leadership is eroding, according to a study by Answers.com, a provider of  cloud-based customer experience solutions. Amazon is down four points from its 2013 score of 84 (on a 100-point scale), and leads QVC.com and Netflix by just one point. 

New York - Total retail sales in the United States  will rise 5% to reach $862 billion during November and December this year, according to the latest forecast from eMarketer.  Among the biggest trends to watch will be the acceleration in online sales, which are expected to grow at  16.6% year over year to reach $72.41 billion, or 8.4% of all retail purchases this holiday season. It’s a considerable uptick from 2013, when online sales totaled 7.6% of all holiday retail purchases.