Winter Holidays

EMERYVILLE, Calif. -- LeapFrog Enterprises was honored at 13th annual Toy Industry Association's Toy of the Year (TOTY) Awards ceremony held in New York on Feb. 9, receiving recognition in two categories. The learning tablet, LeapPad2, received the inaugural "People's Choice Toy of the Year" and "Educational Toy of the Year" awards. 

The year started on a positive note with increases in both number of flyers and pages released to market. More than half of the retailers (56%) maintained previous levels or showed an increase in size of their circulars in January 2013. In addition, the number of inserts per market also showed an increase with almost half (44%) of the advertisers showing a rise in flyer drops for this month. Overall, the number of pages increased slightly (+3.1%), and the number of flyers rose (+8.4%) compared to last year.

WAYNE, N.J. -- Toys"R"Us announced that it will be the first retailer in the United States to offer Fisher-Price's Octonauts toys.

Total U.S. Shopper Traffic in Retail Stores and Malls for January 2013

Retailers pushed to extend the high level of holiday shopping and foot traffic by promoting post-holiday specials and markdowns on seasonal merchandise in January. However, as expected, shopper traffic continued to drop off significantly after the end of the holiday season. 

Philadelphia -- A post-holiday e-commerce report released Friday by technology company Monetate said that, on Christmas Day 2012, 16% of all e-commerce traffic came from smartphones and 15.6% came from tablets, a marked upswing from a year earlier when just 6.4% came from smartphones and 8% from tablets.

GLENDALE, Calif. — Nestle today announced new additions to its line of Valentine’s Day offerings.

This season's collection includes the new Wonka Lik-M-Aid Fun Dip Mystery Flavor Valentine Exchange Kit. Returning this year are Lik-M-Aid Fun Dip Valentine Exchange Kit, Nestlé Crunch and Butterfinger Hearts, Wonka's best-selling Nerds , Pixy Stix, or Laffy Taffy Candy and Card Kits, Wonka Sweetarts Lollipops and Wonka Sweetarts Hearts.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Limited Brands reported that comparable-store sales for the fourth quarter were up 5% and that net sales for the same period were $3.86 billion compared with $3.5 billion for the same period last year.

For the month of February, the company posted sales of $986.4 million compared with $774.5 million for the same period last year. Same-store sales for the month rose 9%. 

Target salvaged its fourth quarter with a 3.1% increase in January same store sales that followed disappointing results in December and November.

Target said sales for the five weeks ended February 2, increased 29.6% to nearly $6 billion due to the inclusion of an extra week in the recent reporting period.

NEW YORK — Department store retailers reported strong sales in January as shoppers responded positively to post-holiday clearance events.  

Overall, the 20 retailers reporting January comps saw an average rise of 5.1%, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers, which beat the mall trade group’s 3% forecasted rise.

CLEVELAND -- American Greetings has launched a new mobile app that lets users send personalized greetings featuring digital versions of its Taylor Swift line.