Seasonal

When it comes to holiday inventory, most retailers use their intuition and industry knowledge to make their sales projections, plan their promotional calendar, and schedule product reorders. This was fine when the season’s promotions were merely percentages off and customers purchased products in stores. But as the retail world becomes more complex, so too must retailers’ holiday plans. With an estimated 40% of retailers’ yearly profits on the line, intuition this holiday season just isn’t enough.  

Watch out Amazon, Walmart may be giving you a run for the money in the holiday toy aisles.    

To help its shoppers get in the holiday shopping spirit, Express is launching exclusive holiday Snapchat filters. To celebrate the biggest shopping day of the year, Express will roll out a series of five Black Friday and holiday-themed national Snapchat filters throughout the day on Black Friday, Nov. 25. The Express-sponsored filters include "It Runs in the Fam," "But First Coffee," "Black Friday Beast Mode," "Leftovers are Lit," and "The Party Starts Now.”

To help its shoppers get in the holiday shopping spirit, Express is launching exclusive holiday Snapchat filters.   To celebrate the biggest shopping day of the year, Express will roll out a series of five Black Friday and holiday-themed national Snapchat filters throughout the day on Black Friday, Nov. 25. The Express-sponsored filters include "It Runs in the Fam," "But First Coffee," "Black Friday Beast Mode," "Leftovers are Lit," and "The Party Starts Now.”  

As the holidays approach, this group of retailers is feeling very confident about its financial health.        Eighty-percent of middle-market retailers (revenue between $5 million and $2.9 billion) rated their overall financial condition as healthy or very healthy in the 8th annual CIT Retail Outlook. Sixty-percent expect an increase in total sales of more than 5% for the 2016 holiday season, compared to only 33% three years ago.    

With the Black Friday weekend nearly here, there are clear winners when it comes to social media engagement.   At the head of the class is Sephora, with 2.4 million consumer interactions (reactions, comments, shares, retweets, favorites) across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Sephora’s top status is being driven by its success on Instagram, a site that reveals high consumer enthusiasm for the retailer’s offerings of makeup box sets and key brands, such as Bite Beauty and Urban Decay, as well as its own collection.

The contractor that flies packages for Amazon and DHL Worldwide Express, ABX Air, has asked a federal judge to force its striking pilots back to work as it looks to put an early end to what could be a major disruption to holiday deliveries, Bloomberg reported.   

Among cities with more than 250,000 residents, Plano, Texas, has the highest median income in the land at $104,000. It’s also one of the nation’s fastest-growing cities, so Eden’s Preston Towne Crossing and Berkeley Square in Plano have expanded and upgraded their food and beverage options in kind.   Recently opened at Preston Towne Crossing are SusieCakes Bakery, a specialist in old-fashioned sweets, cookies, and cakes, and Vom Fass, a purveyor of cask-aged vinegars, oils, wines, and spirits.  

In October of this year, Periscope By McKinsey conducted online research of more than 1,000 consumers in the U.S. to understand their attitudes towards Black Friday and expected shopping patterns.   

Cyber-criminals will be up to no good this holiday season, and they are using the Europay, Mastercard, Visa (EMV) shift as their way in.    The EMV mandate may be adding a layer of protection at store-level, however, it is increasing card-not-present (CNP) fraud for digital retailers. In fact, global retailers can expect 12% growth in online fraudulent activity in the upcoming holiday season, compared with the same period last year.