liday retail sales in 2014—by many accounts a bump from 2013 from a roughly 3% to 4% growth—were pretty much in line with expectations. But some things were different about this
shopping season. While there are no doubt many idiosyncratic lessons to be learned by individual retailers, here are three overall takeaways from the busiest shopping time of the year. Many
retailers, perhaps spooked by low-key back-to-school turnout, the short holiday shopping season, or the overall so-called retail funk, began their holiday marketing and
promotions as early as September. Then more retailers than ever opened on Thanksgiving Day and continued their specials past Cyber Monday. That all seems designed to undermine the
"holiday sales extravaganza" singularity of “Black Friday” as an event.
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