Seasonal

New York -- Holiday shopping is going to start early this year, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers’ latest consumer tracking survey. About 35% of consumers have or will have started their holiday shopping by the end of October. Roughly three out of five shoppers will begin shopping by Thanksgiving this year, and by the end of the Thanksgiving weekend 86% will have started making purchases.   

Amazon’s 50 fulfillments centers and 15 sortation centers are looking to hire 80,000 seasonal works to cope with an anticipated surge in U.S. holiday sales.

Amazon, like other retailers, touts the seasonal positions as an opportunity to get in on the ground floor with the company and establish a foundation for a career. Last year, Amazon said it converted thousands of seasonal employees into regular, full-time roles after the holidays, and expects to do the same this year.
 

Seattle –- Amazon.com will open a holiday pop-up store at San Francisco Westfield Centre, in San Francisco, on Wednesday, Oct. 22, according to the San Francisco Business Journal.   

A delayed start to the shopping season is causing consumers to postpone their holiday purchases until Thanksgiving weekend, according to the 2014 Holiday Purchase Intentions Survey from global information company The NPD Group.

In what promises to be the most digital holiday season ever, Amazon has issued an appeal to shoppers who want to avoid busy parking lots, crowded stores and long checkout lines.

Amazon’s appeal to shoppers was made in conjunction with the release of the online retailers 2014 Holiday Toy List and compounds traditional retailers’ already challenging effort to generate traffic to stores during the holiday season.

Food Lion partnered with its customers and Feeding America to help provide 1.5 million meals to families in need.  

Thanks to a program that began on September 17, each time a customer purchased the specially-marked apples Food Lion helped provide five meals to local food banks.

When it comes to domestic divas, Martha Stewart has few rivals, but Ellen DeGeneres is dipping her toe in the water with a new seasonal home collection branded as E.D. On Air.

The popular comedian and talk show host announced the creation of her new lifestyle collection in July called simply E.D. The new seasonal home collection is called E.D. On Air because it was created exclusively for QVC. It will debut on Friday, October 8 when DeGeneres introduces the line live on her show.

San Francisco -- Gap Inc. plans to hire more than 63,000 seasonal associates—more than Walmart—at its stores, call centers and distribution centers nationwide for the 2014 holiday season. (Walmart previously announced it was hiring 60,000 seasonal associates.)