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By Charles Nicholls, [email protected]

So what can you do during the crazy holiday season to reduce shopping cart abandonment? We thought we’d put together a holiday season checklist to help you keep your customers in the shopping cart this Christmas.

Before thinking about solutions to your shopping cart abandonment problem, it’s useful to look at the reasons why customers abandon. Based on this Forrester study, you can group the top five reasons into:

Albany, N.Y. -- Trans World Entertainment Corp. reported Thursday that it recorded a loss of $16.1 million in the third quarter, compared with a loss of $22.3 million a year earlier.

Total sales dropped 20% to $128.8 million. Same-store sales decreased 5%.

The company, which owns the f.y.e. (For Your Entertainment) chain of music stores, operated an average of 533 stores during the quarter, compared with 694 in the same quarter last year, a 23% decline.

 

Grapevine, Texas -- GameStop Corp. reported Thursday that net earnings for the third quarter increased 4.8% to $54.7 million, from $52.2 million in the prior year quarter.

Total sales increased 3.5% to $1.90 billion.

U.S. segment same-store sales were 5.3%, while total company same-store sales increased 1.1%.

Year-to-date, GameStop has opened 156 net new stores: 89 in the United States; 47 in Europe; eight in Canada; and 12 in Australia/New Zealand. The video game retailer currently operates 6,606 stores in 17 countries.

Pittsburgh -- American Eagle Outfitters reported Thursday that net income for the quarter ended Oct. 30 was $33 million, compared with $59.2 million in the year-ago period. The drop was largely a result of investment losses and a prior-year tax benefit, and masked growth in sales and margins.

Total sales for the quarter increased to $752 million, compared with $736 million last year.

Same-store sales increased 1%.

Framingham, Mass. -- Staples reported Thursday that profit for the third quarter rose 7% as the office supply retailer clamped down on expenses. Net income increased to $288.7 million, from $269.4 million.

Revenue edged up to $6.54 billion from $6.52 billion. Analysts expected $6.53 billion.

Houston -- Stage Stores said Thursday it narrowed its fiscal third-quarter net loss to $6.9 million, from $7.3 million in the year-earlier quarter.

Sales rose 2.1% to $331.9 million, from $324.9 million. The retailer is projecting that fourth-quarter same-store sales will rise 1% to 3%.