Retail

Austin, Texas - The current state of the economy will drive 41% of consumers to look for ways to save money on their holiday shopping this year, seeking out bargains and coupons. According to the new annual holiday shopping and coupon usage survey from Offers.com, about half of people (51%) make a holiday gift list, and 62% set a budget for their holiday gift shopping.

Other holiday-related findings from the survey include:

Seattle – Starbucks will open its first Teavana tea bar in as the company continues to push beyond its core coffee foundation. Teavana Fine Teas + Tea Bar will open on the Upper East Side of Manhattan on Oct. 24, offering snacks and light foods, loose-leaf teas tea blends and novelty beverages, along with  and related merchandise.  

The store is accented with light woods, comfy seating and low lighting. It has no Starbucks branding.

Walmart customers can now trade in their tablets at more than 3,600 stores and Sam’s Club locations nationwide. Similar to its new smartphone trade-in program, customers and members can receive up to $300 for their current tablet, which will then be applied toward the purchase of a new tablet.

Toronto -- Shoppers Drug Mart is teaming up with Beyond the Rack, the online shopping club, to provide Shoppers Optimum members with exclusive deals on designer fashions and accessories.

Shoppers Optimum members are invited to join a new subscription-based retail website that offers exclusive savings and rewards on designer fashions and accessories. Those who register can receive special weekly product offers from Beyond the Rack while collecting 10 Optimum points on every dollar spent.

Lumber Liquidators increased its net income in the third quarter of fiscal 2013 58.4% to $20.4 million, from $12.9 million in the year-ago period.

Net sales grew 24.5% to $254.3 million, from $204.3 million in the same period a year earlier. Same-store sales grew 17.4%, driven by a 9.8% increase in the number of customers invoiced and a 6.9% increase in the average sale.  

Palo Alto, Calif. -- PunchTab, an omni-channel loyalty and engagement platform, announced that Arby’s Restaurant Group, Cosi and Bareburger have adopted PunchTab’s technology, and are benefitting by offering rewards to customers across multiple channels. In fact, research shows, customers are 2.5 times more likely to buy when engaged on multiple channels.

Starbucks previewed the first-of-its-kind Teavana Fine Teas + Tea Bar in New York City’s Upper East Side. The tea bar offers a curated assortment of handcrafted tea beverages, premium loose leaf teas, tea-inspired food offerings and tea merchandise.

It's been almost one year since Starbucks acquired Teavana, and the company plans to expand the new tea bar format to additional stores throughout the course of the next year.

Dodgeville, Wis. -- Lands' End in November will open its first standalone store in a shopping mall. The store will be located in the western Chicago suburbs, in the Yorktown Center Mall, Lombard, Ill.
 
The store officially opens to the public on Nov. 15, marking the first ever full-price Lands' End store outside of Madison, Wis. The company opens the doors on the new location in its milestone 50th anniversary year.