Winter Holidays

New York -- Duane Reade, a division of Walgreens, on Friday at midnight launched a holiday photo contest on Facebook. The “Show Us Your Party Legs”  promotion  is a three week, omnichannel social media marketing campaign to raise awareness of Duane Reade-brand hosiery products. It will run through Jan. 4.

It promises to be a mad dash to the finish for the nation’s retailers this week with half of holiday shoppers planning to wrap up their holiday shopping online and nearly one third of shoppers yet to begin spending, according to the latest survey results from the National Retail Federation.

More Americans now say they are loosening the purse strings in advance of the holiday season, and fewer say they are tightening their belts, according to a recent Citi national survey.

Only 35% said they would be spending less than last year, reflecting the lowest level of holiday budget cutbacks since the financial crisis. As many as 63% of Americans plan to spend more (11%) or the same (52%) on holiday shopping this year.

Millburn, N.J. – A 30-year-old man was fatally shot during a carjacking at The Mall at Short Hills, an upscale shopping center in Millburn, N.J. According to the Newark Star-Ledger, the man and his wife were entering their Range Rover on a parking deck at around 9 p.m., on Dec. 15, following an evening of holiday shopping at the mall when two men fired multiple shots.

New York -- Analysis has uncovered a 46% increase in social networking referrals to top 500 retail websites during the most critical week of the year, just one of four key trends identified in a report by Experian Marketing Services.

The 2013 holiday marketing analysis from the holiday shopping season's peak week, the period beginning Thanksgiving and ending on Cyber Monday, cited the following four trends:

Rakuten LinkShare announced double-digit year-over-year growth during Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, driven primarily by transactions conducted on mobile devices.

New York - Nearly four-in-10 Americans (38%) plan to spend less this holiday season than they did last year, while 14% plan to spend more this year and 47% plan to spend about the same amount as last year. According to a new Bankrate.com report, Americans planning to spend less outnumber those planning to spend more in each age and income group.

Washington, D.C. -- According to NRF’s latest holiday survey conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics, nearly half (49.9%) of holiday shoppers indicate they plan to do the remainder of their holiday shopping online, the highest percent in the survey’s 11-year history. As of Dec. 9, before the most recent weekend, 32 million holiday shoppers had not even started shopping.