Winter Holidays

American Girl is pledging to give away 1,000 dolls a day, or $3 million in retail value, to children in hospitals across the country this holiday season.  

Now through Dec. 18, American Girl will match any doll purchase made online, in-store or via phone with an 18-inch doll donation (up to 1,000 dolls each day) as part of its 2014 “Share the Wonder of the Holidays” giving campaign.

Younger shoppers make up the demographic group most likely to visit physical stores Thanksgiving weekend, but retailers had better be ready to offer the digital natives an ominchannel experience, according to new research from a leading retail trade group.  

Manchester, N.H. - Velcro Industries plans to open a retail pop-up store in the SoHo area of Manhattan. Styled as the "Holiday HackShop," the Velcro-branded pop-up store will be open Dec. 1 – 19.

In an effort to generate traffic and increase sales at its physical stores, Barnes & Noble has announced a secret weapon against Amazon.com this Black Friday.

Barnes & Noble recruited 100 prominent authors — including Donna Tartt, David Mitchell, Dan Brown, E. L. James, Jeff Kinney, George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton — to each sign roughly 5,000 copies of their latest books. The company will distribute and sell the 500,000 signed books among its retail stores only. The signed books will not be available on the company’s website.

Black Friday is known for great deals, but a new study shows that consumers may want to add one more item to their holiday shopping carts.  

Product protection plan leader Asurion recently surveyed consumers and nearly one-third of the items they purchased last Black Friday broke in less than a year. In addition, almost half (45%) of those surveyed plan to replace at least one damaged, lost or stolen item this Black Friday.  

New York - More than two-thirds (69%) of 276 finance industry executives expect 2014 Black Friday sales figures to grow at least 2% from their 2013 levels, with more than one-third (37%) expecting growth of 4% or more. Similarly, almost three-quarters of respondents to a survey from global brokerage firm Convergex (71%) say they expect total holiday season sales numbers to grow at least 2%, with 39% of respondents predicting a gain of 4% or more.

Armonk, N.Y. - Online sales were up 18.7% the weekend before Thanksgiving (Nov. 22-23) compared to the same two-day period in 2013. According to IBM Digital Benchmark analysis, mobile traffic accounted for 48.8% of all online traffic, an increase of 24.4% year-over-year.

In addition, mobile sales accounted for 26.6% of all online sales, an increase of 23.9% year-over-year.

American Girl is pledging to give away 1,000 dolls a day, or $3 million in retail value, to children in hospitals across the country this holiday season.

Now through Dec. 18, American Girl will match any doll purchase made online, in-store or via phone with an 18-inch doll donation (up to 1,000 dolls each day) as part of its 2014 “Share the Wonder of the Holidays” giving campaign.