Winter Holidays

Chicago -- Thanks to a last-minute shopping rush, Christmas 2011 will likely outpace its prior-year counterpart. According to a report released Wednesday by ShopperTrak, consumers spent approximately $44 billion in GAFO retail sales for the week ending Dec. 24, a 37.8% increase over the previous week and a 14.8% gain over the same week last year.

Foot traffic was also high, increasing 32.4% from the previous week.

New York City -- A report released Wednesday by the International Council of Shopping Centers found that a last-minute shopping surge gave merchants a solid lift during the final week before Christmas.

According to the ICSC-Goldman Sachs Weekly Chain Store Sales Index, same-store sales rose 0.9% for the week ended Saturday compared with the previous week. That is also up 3.4% from the week before and up 4.5% over the same period a year ago.

Washington, D.C. -- The Conference Board report, released Tuesday, found that confidence among consumers rose to an eight-month high in December, increasing to 64.5 from a revised 55.2 reading in November.

The index reading exceeded all estimates in a Bloomberg News survey and was the highest since April.

Minneapolis -- After a slew of online orders were cancelled in November and December when Best Buy couldn’t keep up with demand, the company issued the following statement on Tuesday:

“What was wrong is that there was an unacceptable delay between order confirmations and cancellations, and for that we are very sorry,” said Susan Busch, senior director of Best Buy’s public relations. “It’s important to note that this was a rare situation based on a high volume of orders over a short period of time.”

Hoffman Estates, Ill. -- Sears Holdings Corp. said Tuesday that it will close between 100 and 120 underperforming Sears and Kmart stores, following dismal holiday sales results for the brands.

The company said it has not yet identified which stores will be shuttered, but said that the closures are part of an overall plan to shift its focus from shoring up underperformers to concentrating its efforts on stronger stores.

New York City -- The IBM Benchmark Report, released Tuesday, showed continued strength for online retailers.

According to the report, which provided a snapshot of online retail data for December 25 and December 26 as of 12 pm PST, Christmas Day online sales grew by 16.4% year-over-year. And 18.3% of all online sessions on a retailer’s site were initiated from a mobile device, up from 8.4% on Christmas Day 2010 — an increase of 117.8%.

Other report highlights included:

Walmart and the Walmart Foundation give away so much money it is hard to keep track of it all and this was certainly evident during the holiday season.

On Thursday, the company announced another round of grants totaling $200,000 to 10 nonprofits groups as part of its “12 Days of Giving” Facebook campaign. Those grants mark the culmination of an innovating corporate giving campaign that integrated social media and resulted in a total of $1.5 million being awarded to 145 organizations in all 50 states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico.

Increasing shopper traffic in stores was a challenge for Walmart throughout 2011, but it was a different story online. The retailer surged to number 18 on the November ranking of the top 50 U.S. Internet properties compiled by online measurement firm comScore.

Walmart.com registered 58.5 million unique visitors in November, a big lift sequentially from October when it had 45.2 million visitors and, more impressively, well above November 2010 when comScore showed Walmart.com with 51.8 million visitors.