Content about Christmas and holiday season

Online sales returned to pre-recession growth levels in 2012, advancing 15% to a record $186.2 billion, according to a year end recap by online measurement firm comScore.

Total U.S. Shopper Traffic in Retail Stores and Malls for December 2012

Holiday shopping reached its seasonal peak in December, driving a 36.6 percent retail foot traffic increase over November. Further, December 2012 continued a trend of year-over-year improvements in the number of shoppers visiting stores with a 1.2 percent increase in foot traffic when compared to the same month last year.

Online holiday season sales grew 14% to $42.3 billion, a little short of comScore’s pre-season forecast.

The online measurement firm originally projected that online sales during the November and December period would increase 16% to $43.4 billion. However, after a strong start online sales fizzled a bit in early December and never quite regained enough momentum to achieve the firm’s earlier target.

Online sales are expected to reach record levels this holiday season, but traffic to Walmart.com was down in November compared to the same period the prior year.

PORTLAND, Maine — CashStar, a leading digital gifting company, has partnered with celebrations site Punchbowl.com, which enables its consumers to embed eGift Cards in their digital greeting cards.

A worse than expected 1% decline in November same store sales indicates the holiday season is off to a slow start at Target.

The 1% decline was substantially worse than the low single digit increase the company forecast at the start of the month when it reported a 2.4% increase for October that was toward the low end of guidance. The November weakness suggest traffic trends may be deteriorating at Target as the company said blamed the decline on a decrease in comparable store transactions following that metric’s flat performance in October.

Retailers may as well start devising their 2013 Black Friday plans now based on the popularity of this year’s early openings on Thanksgiving.

The Thanksgiving evening openings by the likes of Walmart, Toys ‘R’ Us, Target, Sears and Kmart were denounced in some quarters as being anti-family, but a few vocal critics didn’t speak for the majority of shoppers who turned out in droves and spent with gusto.

WILMINGTON, Del. — The retail industry is awash with forecasts and projections during the holidays, but a near real-time indicator from Chase reveals how shoppers are actually behaving.

Value never goes out of style during the holiday’s and Ross Stores is well positioned to capitalize on this most enduring of seasonal behaviors.

Smartphones will be retailers’ friend this holiday season, according to Deloitte’s annual survey of spending intentions and trends.

CHICAGO — Black Friday will be the single biggest sales and foot traffic day of this holiday season, followed by Saturday, Dec. 22, according to ShopperTrak, the world’s largest counter and analyzer of retail foot traffic. With the greatest possible number of shopping days — 32 — lying between Black Friday and Christmas this year, ShopperTrak predicts that national retail sales will rise 3.3% (over last year) during the peak holiday shopping months of November and December; retail foot traffic will increase 2.8%.