Department Store

Armonk, N.Y. -- U.S. shoppers took advantage of early sales this holiday driving a 39.3% increase in online Thanksgiving day spending while setting the stage for 24.3% online growth on Black Friday compared with the same period last year, according to the fourth annual IBM Coremetrics Black Friday Benchmark study, which tracks more than a million transactions a day, analyzing terabytes of raw data from 500 retailers nationwide.

Retailers who promoted their online presence as a way to avoid the crowds this past weekend were rewarded for their efforts with record sales on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday.

The combination of earlier than ever opening hours, favorable weather and deal conscious consumers receptive to heightened promotional activity produced record sales over Thanksgiving weekend.

The National Retail Federation said an estimated 226 million shoppers visited stores and websites over Thanksgiving weekend, compared with 212 million last year, and spent an average of $398 per person, compared with $365 last year. Those findings are based on an NRF survey of 3,826 shoppers conducted over the weekend by BIGresearch.

New York City -- E-commerce spending jumped 26% on Black Friday, according to comscore.

Black Friday web sales totaled $816 million, up from $648 million last year, comScore reported.

“With brick-and-mortar retail also reporting strong gains on Black Friday, it's clear that the heavy promotional activity had a positive impact on both channels," said Gian Fulgoni, chairman, comScore.

All those flat screens televisions sticking out of shopping carts in the aisles of Target stores early Friday morning were no optical illusion.

Cherry Hill, N.J. -- Philadelphia-based Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust said that plus-size fashion retailer Fashion to Figure has opened a 2,719-sq-ft. store at Cherry Hill Mall, in Cherry Hill, N.J.

The new store is located on the Upper Level near J.C. Penney.

New York City -- Gap Inc. on Thursday opened its first store in Poland, in Warsaw’s Arkadia mall.

Gap and its Polish franchise partner, Ultimate Fashion, are planning to open more stores in Poland in 2012 and expand to other countries in the region.
 

Waterford, Conn. -- Brixmor Property Group said that Motherhood Maternity has opened a 1,500-sq.-ft. store at Waterford Commons, located in Waterford, Conn.

Brixmor, based in New York City, owns Waterford Commons.