Mass Merchant

BENTONVILLE, Ark. — Sam's Club announced that it is teaming up with The Salvation Army and Off the Field professional football players' wives association for the fifth annual Dream Drive for the Salvation Army. Twenty pre-selected families from the Salvation Army Adopt-A-Family program in 10 different cities will receive $1,000 worth of gifts, including food, clothes, personal items and toys from Sam's Club. As part of the Dream Drive campaign, Off the Field representatives will be shopping at their local Sam's Clubs on Dec. 8 to purchase items for these families.

CONSHOHOCKEN, Pa. — Ikea announced that it plans to install solar energy panels on ten additional United States locations. Pending governmental permits, installation can begin this winter, with completion expected in summer 2012, the company said. Collectively, the nine stores and one distribution center will total 10.7 Megawatts (MW) of solar generating capacity, nearly 45,360 panels, and a projected annual electricity output of 15,248,334 kilowatt hours (kWh).

Beachwood, Ohio -- DDR Corp announced the launch of ValuText, a location-based, mobile marketing service specifically designed to drive sales and productivity at the company's prime assets. ValuText couples physical retail assets with state-of-the-art, location-based mobile marketing. The program allows shoppers to connect with desired retailers as they enter the shopping center to avail themselves of real-time sales and promotions.

NEW YORK — Target's flat apparel and accessories for the month of November reflected a mixed sales environment across the department-store and specialty-apparel sectors as the economy continues to affect discretionary spending.

Delinquency rates in Target’s credit card portfolio are still really good, but after several years of steady improvement, a slight deterioration has become evident the past few months.

In November, 3.3% of accounts were three or more payments past due, the same rate as the prior month but slightly higher than the low of 3% seen during September, August and July. Likewise, accounts with four or more payments past due stood at 2.2% in November, the same as in October, but higher than the 2.1% seen the prior four months.

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Shoppers who were out in full force on Black Friday may not walk retail aisles again until just before Christmas — when retailers are expected to heavily discount merchandise — according to the latest America's Research Group/UBS "Christmas Forecast."

RESTON, Va. — Online retail spending has seen a big jump this holiday season to date, according to a new report from ComScore.

According to the research firm, retail e-commerce spending for the first 32 days of the November-December 2011 holiday season saw a 15% spike to $18.7 billion, compared with the corresponding days last year. The overall spending was driven by billion-dollar spending days, including Cyber Monday, Nov. 28 ($1.25 billion), followed by Nov. 29 ($1.12 billion) and Nov. 30 ($1.03 billion).

Target may have been up against a difficult prior-year comparison when it reported a 1.8% November same-store sales increase, but that hardly seems like a good excuse for an anemic number to begin the fourth quarter.