Winter Holidays

You’ve seen her in television commercials, that blonde-haired wacky lady dressed in red whose passion for shopping at Target knows no bounds. Advertising Age’s Natalie Zmuda interviewed the “Christmas Champ” recently to get her thoughts on off-season preparation and Black Friday strategy. Read the article here. 

Consistent with promotional strategies from previous years, Target is offering some insane prices on popular electronics items. Unfortunately, if holiday shoppers follow the advice of Consumer Reports this year they won’t be coming to Target.

Chicago -- Up to 60% more shoppers will enter stores on Dec. 26 than on the same day last year, according to ShopperTrak, the world's largest provider of retail and mall foot traffic counting services. The reason for the increase is due to the calendar: Shoppers will come out in full force on the day after Christmas because it falls on a Monday for the first time in six years. That day will rank third in foot traffic for the holiday shopping season, surpassed only by Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, and Super Saturday, the Saturday one week before Christmas.

San Francisco -- Walmart has the most engaged users across its social media platforms as the days count down to the holiday shopping season, according to a study by the social media and digital analytics company Socialbakers.

Walmart has the most number of fans topping the list at over 10 million fans, with over 7,500 fan posts last month, Socialbakers said. The engagement rate represents fan interactions and although Target ties with an average monthly engagement rate, Walmart has nearly double the number of fans who are actively posting.

Jones Lang LaSalle, Atlanta, has launched its annual “Spread the Cheer” holiday campaign -- featuring digital media innovations -- across its portfolio of managed shopping centers.

To engage shoppers and drive sales and traffic during the most important retail season of the year, the firm will share insider intelligence on the best products and offers at its shopping centers through e-blasts, social media and text messages while also engaging them with events, giveaways and random acts of kindness across its 98 million-sq.-ft. nationwide retail portfolio.

Chicago -- Nearly 70% of U.S. adults would avoid shopping at a retail store if they encountered empty shelves, according to a nationwide survey commissioned by Galleria Retail Technology Solutions, a leading provider of retail and category optimization solutions. Long checkout lines are another big turnoff (64%).

If you’re someone who puts off your holiday shopping until the last minute to save a few bucks by scouring for the best “deals” and taking advantage of those absolute bargain basement prices, I’m afraid you may be in for a rude awakening this holiday shopping season. If my sense of the retail landscape is correct, I think it’s possible we’ll see prices increase as Christmas gets closer.

Walmart gave investors an early Christmas gift earlier this week in the form of a long-awaited third-quarter same-stores sales increase, then ruined the holiday spirit by coming up a penny short of analysts’ earnings estimates.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. That seems to be the message implied in Walmart’s guidance for fourth-quarter same-store sales in a range of flat to up 2%. The company’s comps expectations follow a third-quarter increase of 1.3% that ended a two-year string of negative results, but appear rather muted against the backdrop of talk about the company’s gathering momentum, the effectiveness of strategies and solid positioning for the holidays.

Washington, D.C. -- Holiday shoppers are expected to spend $155.43 on average for gift cards this season, and total gift-card spending is projected to reach $27.8 billion, according to a survey released Friday by the National Retail Federation.