Today’s Tipsheet: Target: Mad Dash for the Bears | “Seminal Moment”: Clicks Beat Bricks | 4.4% Fewer Today
More Americans Shopped Online than at Stores over Black Friday Weekend by Phil Wahba at Fortune. “Talk about a seminal moment in American culture. Some 103 million Americans shopped online over the Thanksgiving-Black Friday weekend, slightly more than the 102 million who went out to stores.” Read more
NRF: U.S. holiday sales on track amid online boost by Nathan Layne at Reuters. “U.S. holiday shopping is on track for a modest 3.7 percent rise this year after strong turnout during the Thanksgiving and Black Friday weekend and thanks to strong online sales, the National Retail Federation said on Sunday after releasing an annual consumer poll.” Read more
Holiday sales ‘perfectly average’ so far: Analyst by Tom DiChristopher at CNBC. “…nothing suggests estimates for total 2015 holiday sales growth have changed at the close of the big four-day kickoff period.” Read more
4.4% fewer expected to shop online on Cyber Monday by Matt Linder at Internet Retailer. “That 121.3 million number represents 49.5% of all consumers, the first time less than half of all shoppers surveyed said they planned to shop on Cyber Monday since 2010.” Read more
Spending in stores fell 10 percent from last year on both Thanksgiving and Black Friday, according to retailing research firm ShopperTrak via Maria Halkias at The Dallas Morning News. “Thanksgiving weekend is now “more like the second quarter, going into halftime” of a football game because retailers are offering special prices several weeks earlier, said Matthew Shay, CEO of the National Retail Federation.” Read more
Retailers are losing $1.75 trillion over this by Krystina Gustafson at CNBC. “…out-of-stocks” accounted for $634.1 billion in lost retail sales for the year ended in the spring — 39 percent higher than in 2012. Likewise, overstocks contributed $471.9 billion in lost revenues.” Read more
NY Times: Kohl’s Invests in Beatles Tune for Holiday Campaign by Martha C. White. “The Beatles and their representatives retain control of how their music is used. Even after Kohl’s paid to use the song, the company’s creative team and partners had to work with Sony to secure approval for the final advertisements, a process that took roughly five months.” Read more
The surprisingly popular Black Friday hit: Target’s teddy bear by Kavita Kumar at Star Tribune. “At the Target store in Minnetonka, I saw a mad dash for the bears, piled in a box toward the back of the store. About 15 minutes or so after the store opened, this was the only one left and it was quickly snatched up after I took this picture.” Read more
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Amazon reveals new delivery drone design with range of 15 miles by Taylor Soper at GeekWire. “This new video featuring Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson…to create a new car show, shows how the drone scans a landing area at a customer’s home and is able to spot what looks like an Amazon logo where the package is dropped.” Read more / See the video
Neiman Marcus Extends Black Friday Online Sale Following All-Day Outage by Jason Del Rey at Recode. “Neimanmarcus.com was down intermittently Friday, November 28th for approximately 12 hours,” the statement read. “The exact cause of the outage has yet to be determined. Our Black Friday online promotions have been extended until 6 pm CT Saturday.” Read more
Conversion: Just two out of 100 visitors to a mobile shopping site or app by Jason Del Rey at Recode. “Five out of 100 visitors to an online store made a purchase on Thanksgiving…“[A]s an industry we need to solve this mobile problem as it’s clearly not getting better even though retailers have invested substantially in this area over the last year,” Scot Wingo, ChannelAdvisor’s executive chairman, said.” Read more
How an army of Amazon reps handle customer confusion, rage by Jay Greene at Seattle Times. “The metric it uses is “negative response rate” or NRR. At the end of each call, reps ask if they’ve resolved the problem…“You’ll never see anything about average handle time,” Scharffenorth said. “It may take 20 minutes. We’ve had calls that take an hour.” Read more
Kohl’s to ‘relaunch’ Sonoma brand in new women’s clothing sales push by Rick Romell at Milwaukee Journal Sentinel via Star Tribune. “Kohl’s wins if women’s wins,” said Michelle Gass, chief merchandising and customer officer. “If women’s doesn’t perform, we have a major issue.” There are issues. “You can look at our [women’s] performance over the last five years, and it’s been choppy,” Gass said.” Read more
Brooks Brothers’ glitch overcharges shoppers by Krystina Gustafson at CNBC. “The wait time on Brooks Brothers’ customer service line was more than 10 minutes Friday afternoon.” Read more
Macy’s CEO: Despite Web, death of store experience ‘greatly exaggerated’ by Trent Gillies at CNBC. “If you saw the traffic when we opened the doors at 6 pm, flowing into stores like Macy’s Herald Square, you’d say people definitely want to shop on that night and in a store like Macy’s,” he said.” Read more
Half a million British families at risk as hackers target toy firm website by Nick Craven at Daily Mail. “Toy giant Vtech admitted that a database of names and addresses holding up to five million accounts worldwide had been breached.” Read more
Tipsheet Extra Stories
Toys ‘R’ Us CEO Says Early Signs Point to Slower Growth for Toys
1,000 Christmas trees stolen from South Florida Costco
Pop-up Goodwill (“GW”) shop uptown to offer tacky Christmas sweaters, designer apparel
Bogus bomb threats target Wal-Marts across Maine, other states
In One Brutal Chart, the Federal Reserve Shows What Has Happened to U.S. Department Stores Since 2001
Canadian miner who found second biggest diamond holding out for ‘north of $60 million’
Retailers boost offerings as Nordstrom joins crowded Canadian beauty sector
Contact Jason Long, jlong@eyeonretail.net