Winter Holidays

Walmart will offer its holiday layaway 30 days earlier this year and extend the program to more product categories, the company announced Monday.

Winter is fast approaching — is your facility ready? Statistically speaking nearly 80% of all slip and falls are due to snow and ice, and they occur mainly in parking lots and sidewalks. As an expert witness and consultant in the field of risk and liability due to snow and ice, I see incidences that could have been avoided had the facility performed a pre-season property assessment.

HERSHEY, Pa. and SAN FRANCISCO — The Hershey Company recently partnered with the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, Calif. to provide students with a hands-on package-design opportunity. Students were asked to create a customized heart box design for Hershey's Pot of Gold chocolates to help give the collection a contemporary, fresh look for the 2013 Valentine's Day season.

Retailers looking to add sparkle to this year’s Christmas season may want to take a new look at their gift card programs. Last year, more than half of consumers bought at least one gift card for the holidays, according to a report from First Data Corp., an Atlanta-based e-commerce processor.

Indeed, consumers seem to be taking more of a shine than ever to these types of spending vehicles.

When the days grow shorter and the air starts to turn chilly, retail companies prepare for their hottest time of year. As they get ready for the holiday season, retailers will do well to keep three additional factors in mind:

u Adjust for the presidential election. Typically, retailers market heavily in October and early November to drive store foot traffic as the holidays begin. Early marketing efforts, however, will not go as far this holiday season.

New York -- A report released Tuesday by Capital Business Credit found that, overall, importers and manufacturers who sell to America's major retailers are preparing for a surprisingly stronger winter shopping season than expected.

According to the quarterly "Global Retail Manufacturers and Importers Survey," 77% of importers of retail goods believe the fall/winter season will be the same or stronger than last year.

Washington, D.C. -- Import cargo volume at the nation’s major retail container ports is expected to increase 6.3% in August, compared with the same month last year, and 2012 should show an increase of 4.8% over last year, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released Monday by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.

Menomonee Falls, Wis. -- Kohl’s Corp. reported a better-than-expected second-quarter profit amid efforts to control costs. Sales, however, disappointed.

The retailer posted a second-quarter profit of $240 million, down from $299 million in the year-ago period.

Net sales were $4.2 billion, down 1.0% from last year. Same-store sales decreased 2.7% for the quarter.