Winter Holidays

Minneapolis — Target Corp. gained some momentum going into the holiday season with a third quarter that beat both Wall Street and internal expectations as sales as its U.S. stores exceeded estimates and its troubled Canadian division showed signs of improvement. Its results were also driven by increased promotional activity. This was Target’s first quarter under the leadership of CEO Brian Cornell, who replaced Gregg Steinhafel in August.   

Zappos.com says it will celebrate Thanksgiving and Black Friday weekend by donating 10 meals per order placed on Zappos.com in partnership with Feeding America, the leading domestic hunger-relief charity.

The company says the objective of its Fast, Free Giving effort is to give back this holiday season and for consumers to put their dollars behind more than just holiday gifts: to help those most in need, too.

It took a heightened level of promotional activity to drive marginally better than expected third quarter same store sales growth at Target’s U.S. stores while losses in Canada were less severe than the prior year.

The resumption of top line growth at Stage Stores enabled the operator of 858 stores to reduce the size of its third quarter net loss, but CEO Michael Glazer is taking a cautious view of the holidays.

San Jose, Calif. – Black Friday (Nov. 28) is expected to be the busiest shopping day of 2014. According to data from in-store analytics provider RetailNext, it will be followed in order by four days in December: Dec. 20, 21, 13 and 19.
For the broader holiday period spanning November and December 2014, RetailNext predicts store traffic will be down 4% from the 2013 holiday period, while sales will be flat to 1% lower, conversions will be up 0.5% and average transaction value will rise 3.5%.

RESTON, Va. — Total online retail spending for the November–December period will reach $61.0 billion, a 16% gain versus year ago, according to comScore’s 2014 holiday forecast.  Spending using desktop computers for that period is expected to reach $53.2 billion, up 14%  year-over-year, which is 4 percentage points higher than last season’s 10-percent growth rate.

Mobile commerce is predicted to account for $7.9 billion of retail spending, representing 13% of total digital commerce and growing at an annual rate of 25% vs. last season.

New York, N.Y. - Just more than half of all Americans (51%) plan to purchase toys as gifts in the upcoming holiday season, nearly consistent with the prior year's intent (50%). Not surprisingly, according to a new Harris Poll of 2,205 U.S, adults, parents of a child under the age of 18 are twice as likely to purchase toys as those without children younger than the age of 18 (82% compared 41%, respectively).   

Milwaukee, W.I. - Most shoppers believe that the best time to shop online for Black Friday deals is on Black Friday itself. However after examining data from the past two years, the staff of Black Friday site GottaDeal.com has determined that the best time to shop online is actually late Wednesday night into early Thursday morning.

SAN FRANCISCO — Gap Inc. is looking to make shopping as easy and convenient this holiday season– regardless of whether shoppers  prefer to shop online, in stores or on their  mobile device.  Plans include the launch of an online Wish List tool that allows shoppers to create a list of most-wanted items from across all five of the company’s brands: Gap, Banana Republic & Banana Republic Factory Store, Old Navy, Athleta and Piperlime.

Hollywood, Calif. - Online and offline consumer conversations and recommendations account for 13% of consumer sales, on average, which represents $6 trillion in annual consumer spending. In higher price-point categories, word of mouth's impact is almost 20% of sales, according to a new study from the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA).