Winter Holidays

  NEW YORK - Senior middle-market retail executives are cautiously optimistic about the upcoming holiday season.  Fifty-five percent of executives anticipate their total holiday sales will increase by 6% or more in 2014, as compared to only a third last year, according to an annual study conducted by CIT Group.  

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.

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.

New York — Most Americans won’t shop on either Black Friday or Cyber Monday this year. According to a new Bankrate.com survey of 1,000 consumers, only 28% of Americans plan to shop in a store on Black Friday.   

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. 

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.

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.   

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.