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New York - Online sales were up 17% on Saturday and Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend, compared to the same weekend in 2013, according to IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark. What's more, mobile traffic accounted for 51.2%  of all online traffic this past weekend, an increase of 25.5% year over year, and mobile sales accounted for 28.9% of all online sales this past weekend, an increase of 24.9% year over year.   

Washington, D.C. – Online sales are expected to reach $300 billion in 2014, $335 billion in 2015 and $512 billion by 2020. According to predictions from FTI Consulting Inc., despite sluggish retail sales in the past year, FTI Consulting's Retail & Consumer Product experts believe online sales will continue to grow at a double-digit rate for the next several years.  

By Scot Wingo, CEO, ChannelAdvisor Happy Cyber Monday! Each year we at ChannelAdvisor track the five days from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday and call that the “Cyber Five.” This year, our Cyber Five Same Store Sales (SSS) data to date shows that Holiday ’14 is off to a very strong start.

The world's largest retailer reported a robust Black Friday weekend — including record online sales — as part of its kickoff to the 2014 holiday sales season.

“In a few short hours, we flipped from being the largest grocery store in town to the best gift shop on the block," said Laura Phillips, SVP of merchandising at Walmart. "Not only did we have millions of customers shopping our stores, but we’re confident Walmart was the first stop of the night for most of them."

Cyber Monday, the day of the year that traditionally sees the highest volume of digital shopping transactions, falls this week. In honor of the occasion, I’d like to offer three tips on how to keep the spirit of Cyber Monday alive throughout the year.   Obviously retailers cannot afford to offer Cyber Monday-level online bargain prices all year long, but there are several non-monetary steps they can take.   Make It Personal

Move over pumpkin pie: Black Friday fervor seemed to stir up more conversations on social media than the Thanksgiving holiday itself.

According to Salesforce.com, social media posts about Black Friday shopping numbered 2.7 million. Roughly 278,000 posts were stamped with the hashtag "#blackfriday" and another 8,000 were labeled "#deals," vs. just 85,000 with "#Thanksgiving."

There were also about 1.84 million holiday shopping posts on Thanksgiving Day, and about 719,000 posts the day before Thanksgiving.

New York - Across the country, there was strong support for local businesses on Small Business Saturday, with shopping up 14.9% from last year, according to the results from the Small Business Saturday Consumer Insights Survey, released today by American Express and the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB).    

San Francisco - Compared to the 2012 and 2013 peak shopping seasons, paid search spending began to rise nine days prior to Thanksgiving in 2014, four days earlier than the years prior. According to data from predictive marketing technology provider Kenshoo, not only has the shopping season been extended in 2014, but retailers are investing more budget into their paid search campaigns this year than ever before.