Winter Holidays

Where did the idea for the Black Friday and Cyber Monday Consumer Face-Off originate?

The Canadian division of Toys "R" Us has added new distribution capacity in British Columbia to receive imports and improve shipping to local stores.

The 180,000-sq.-ft. facility, located in the Vancouver suburb of Delta, is the retailer’s third Canadian distribution center. It is strategically positioned to receive goods from overseas and domestic manufacturers who can now ship directly to British Columbia for distribution to local Toys"R"Us and Babies"R"Us stores.

Plano, Texas -- J.C. Penney said Tuesday it has launched its nationwide Holiday Giving Tour, which entails a 12-day giving spree during which the retailer carries out acts of generosity in a new city each day.

Events include Christmas tree lighting, ice skating, Santa visits and tobogganing.
 
The tour kicks off Nov. 27 with a live holiday performance by Grammy Award-winning artist John Legend, followed by free ice skating, skate rentals and hot chocolate in Manhattan's Citi Pond at Bryant Park.

Target is working its way across Canada beginning this week by hosting special events in 20 cities to build interest in the planned opening of 124 stores in 2013.

Chicago -- ShopperTrak reported Tuesday that it estimates retail foot traffic over the Black Weekend shopping period rose 8.2% year-over-year. That equates to more than 594 million store visits between Thursday and Monday.

Retail sales increased 2.7%, with shoppers spending about $22 billion across the weekend's four days. Thursday's "door-buster" deals drove sales and traffic earlier in the weekend.    

Armonk, N.Y. -- IBM reported Tuesday that online spending surged 30.3% year-over-year on Cyber Monday, an all-time high.

Mobile shopping rose 70% over the prior year.

As part of IBM’s Smarter Commerce initiative, the IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark revealed the following additional Cyber Monday key findings:

SEATTLE — It’s no surprise that on the heels of record-breaking Cyber Monday sales, heavyweight Amazon reported record sales of its popular Kindle devices.

Cyber Monday 2012 proved to be the biggest day ever for Kindle sales worldwide, cementing the top four spots for Kindle e-readers and Kindle fires on Amazon’s worldwide bestsellers list. The Kindle devices have held the top four spots since their launch nearly three months ago.

To celebrate Cyber Monday, Amazon.com offered the Kindle Fire for $129.

New York -- Cyber Monday continues its importance, driving a nearly 22% increase in year-over-year online sales, Chase reported Tuesday as part of its latest Holiday Pulse report. Monday sales beat Sunday, the next highest day, by a margin of 26.7%.