Omnichannel

Bentonville, Ark. -- Walmart will start unveiling its Black Friday deals on Thanksgiving at 6 p.m., which is two hours earlier than last year, and stagger them throughout the night and all Black Friday weekend. The retailer is also offering a special incentive to employees who work on Thanksgiving Day: a 25% discount on an entire purchase this holiday season."

Shareable content, enhanced product images, live chat and improved search capabilities are among the key changes introduced Tuesday morning to the Toysrus.com and Babiesrus.com websites.

New York -- In the first 10 months of 2013, e-commerce sales are up 17% from the same period last year, according to the Visa Spending Intentions survey. To-date in 2013, Visa domestic e-commerce transactions exceeded one billion dollars on 211 days, an increase of 19% from 2012.

In other findings:

Wayne, N.J. -- Toys “R” Us unveiled redesigned and updated e-commerce sites for Toysrus.com and Babiesrus.com, with a fresh design and layout, revamped navigation and other new features. In addition, the sites have introduced social shopping – allowing customers to organize their most-wanted items in shareable toy and baby boards, while also viewing the most popular and trending products on the sites.

The retail industry continues to hurtle toward an omnichannel reality with the most recent example involving SharperImage.com and the integration of “buy now” mobile capabilities provided by Digimarc into its print catalogs.

Burlington, Mass. -- Demandware announced that Black Diamond Equipment, which specializes in active outdoor performance products for climbing, mountaineering, backpacking, skiing and other active outdoor recreation activities, has re-launched its ecommerce site on the Demandware Commerce platform.

Over time, Black Diamond, Inc. plans to leverage Demandware’s cloud platform to quickly and cost-effectively roll out distinct sites for all of its global brands, including Black Diamond, , Gregory,  POC and PIEPS.

Holiday shopping continues to encroach on Thanksgiving with Walmart the latest retailer to reveal plans that its promotional activity will begin at 6 p.m. with an expanded range of featured items, price guarantees, deeper inventory levels and detailed crowd control procedures.

By Lynn Hinderaker, [email protected]

The future is knocking on the door of hedge fund manager and owner of Sears, Eddie Lampert. His decision to split off Lands’ End and Sears Auto Center from the core Sears brand would have been a good decision in 2004, one year after he purchased the deteriorating retail brand. Today, given the monumental shift in online purchasing behavior that has changed all of retailing, Lampert’s move is akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.