Content about Thanksgiving

Asian fusion restaurant Ling & Louie's Kitchen is coming to Minneapolis and it will be located across the street from Target’s headquarters on Nicollet Mall.

Normally, a restaurant opening in Minneapolis wouldn’t qualify as retail industry news. However, an exception can be made when the location is across the street from Target’s bustling downtown headquarters where it is likely to become the new hot spot for employees at Target as well as supplier companies who populate nearby buildings.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — In a survey of more than 6,200 consumers collected during the peak holiday shopping season between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Amazon scored highest among 25 of the top mobile commerce companies in terms of customer satisfaction, according to a report released Tuesday by ForeSee. 

By Bruce Jones

The 2012 holiday shopping season featured stores opening earlier on Thanksgiving, extended hours shopping marathons, and, according to the National Retail Federation, an additional 585,000 to 625,000 seasonal retail workers.

An annual holiday e-retail satisfaction report produced by analytic's firm ForeSee showed considerable improvement at Target this year following a challenging 2011.

Amazon.com, LLBean.com and QVC.com were the top three retailers on ForeSee’s Annual Holiday E-Retail Satisfaction survey while Target was in the upper one third of companies analyzed.

ISELIN, N.J. — Domino Sugar has donated $50,000 to the American Red Cross for relief and rebuilding efforts in the Northeast following Hurricane Sandy.

Promotional activity among the nation’s leading retailers declined during November aside from several notable exceptions. There was a flurry of intense promotional activity around Thanksgiving weekend, as always, but for the months as a whole the number of inserts distributed by retailers declined 7% and the number of pages declined by 5%.

TJX Companies reported a 3% comp increase on top of a prior year gain of 4% while Ross Stores said posted a comp increase of 2% compared to last November’s 5% comp increase.

Total sales at TJX increased 7% to $2.2 billion during the November reporting period and so far this year sales at the company have advanced 10% to $20.3 billion. Total sales for November at Ross increased 6% to $813 million and so far this year are up 11% to nearly $7.8 billion.

GOODLETTSVILLE, Tenn. — Capitalizing on its Thanksgiving and Black Friday sales, Dollar General has tackled Cyber Monday with the launch of a new mobile app for iPhone and Android smartphones.

The mobile app will offer shoppers sales ads, store locations, coupons and, of course, exclusive Cyber Monday deals available online. Shoppers will also be able to use Dollar General’s free Quick Response scanner to access upcoming sales and unlock additional savings, as well as connect with the retailer on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

"A huge win," is how National Retailer Federation president and CEO Matt Shay characterized the biggest shopping weekend of the year during media briefing Sunday afternoon.

More people shopped more often in more places over the weekend and in the process pushed spending to a record $59.1 billion compared to $52.4 billion during the comparable four day period the prior year, according to an NRF survey of 4,000 shoppers.

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.

Online shopping surged 26% on Black Friday to surpass $1 billion for the first time, according to the digital measurement firm comScore.

Protests by organized labor failed to materialize in a meaningful way at Walmart stores over the weekend and the retailer went on to achieve record results.