Holidays, Retail | featured news

A last-minute surge in spending helped many major retailers report better-than-expected sales in December, a relief for stores that make up to 40 percent of annual revenue during the holiday period.

Put down that turkey leg. It's time to shop. No, really. Stores typically open in the wee hours of the morning on the day after Thanksgiving known as Black Friday, named for the period when stores traditionally turn a profit for the year.

Those hoping to save a couple bucks on a last-minute Thanksgiving meal may want to shop at Target, which beat Walmart for the cheaper turkey dinner. Bloomberg Industries conducted a study of 15 retailers and determined that a Thanksgiving turkey dinner from Target is cheaper than one from retail competitor Walmart. An 18-item meal, including turkey, cranberries, onions, corn, pumpkin and heavy cream, from Target costs $45.48. The same dinner goes for $52.31 at Walmart, $70.18 at Whole Foods Market and $70.82 at Acme, owned by Supervalu Inc.

This holiday season, Burger King won't be the only place where you can have it your way. It used to be enough for stores to promise discounts of up to 70 percent off to lure shoppers during the busy holiday shopping season. But the ease of ordering online and the sluggish economy has created more demanding U.S. consumers who aren't impressed by discounts alone. They want their shopping just like their fast food: not only cheap, but convenient too.

It used to be just called Thanksgiving. Now the day is increasingly called Black Friday Eve or Black Thursday, as retailers double down on ever-earlier opening hours for the kickoff of the holiday shopping season.

The best that can be said about the 2012 holiday shopping season is that it will be about average, according to the latest forecast from the National Retail Federation (NRF), a retail trade group.

A mall trade group says that last minute shoppers gave merchants a solid lift during the final week before Christmas. Sales at stores opened at least a year rose 0.9 percent for the week ended Saturday compared with the previous week and was up 4.5 percent compared with the same period a year ago, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers-Goldman Sachs Weekly Chain Store Sales Index, released Wednesday.

With the intensity of Black Friday shopping starting to fade, store chains know they are under pressure to keep the sales momentum going as they enter the next phase of a competitive holiday shopping season.

It looks like we’re headed into another not-so-jolly holiday shopping season. According to the latest Consumer Reports Holiday Shopping Poll out today, only a third of those surveyed expect to be happier this holiday season than last.

It looks like retailers will have to work extra hard to keep this holiday season from turning into a bah humbug. A new forecast indicates that sales will likely not be as high as last year and that shoppers won't be hitting the stores as much.