NRF: U.S. shoppers spend less over holiday weekend amid discounting by Nandita Bose at Reuters. “Shoppers spent $289.19 over the four-day weekend through Sunday compared to $299.60 over the same period a year earlier. The survey found that 154 million people made purchases over the four days, up from 151 million a year ago. However, there was a 4.2 percent rise in consumers who shopped online and a 3.7 percent drop in shoppers who purchased in a store.” Read more

 

Adobe: Online spending over Thanksgiving and Black Friday grew nearly 18% to $5.27 billion compared with last year via Fox Business. Read more

 

Thanksgiving online shoppers bought twice as much through phones as through tablets by Jason Del Rey at Recode. “More than a quarter of online sales on Thanksgiving — 27 percent, to be exact — took place via mobile phones compared with 22 percent last year, according to Adobe, which tracks $7.50 of every $10 spent online.” Read more

 

Adobe: Cyber Monday expected to generate at least $3.36 billion in revenue — up nearly 10% from last year — bringing the Thursday-through-Monday online total to more than $10 billion by Sophia Rosenbaum at NY Post. Read more

 

This is your holiday season reminder that Amazon doesn’t always have the lowest prices by Jason Del Rey at Recode. “Over at Jet.com… you could find better prices on 46 percent of top-selling toys that both sites carried.” Read more

 

As Gap Struggles, Its Analytical CEO Prizes Data Over Design by Khadeeja Safdar at Wall Street Journal. “The 61-year-old CEO is blunt in his criticism of the industry’s long fascination with creative executives who are given broad powers to set the overall image of a brand. “We have cycled through so many, and each has been proclaimed as the next savior,” he said. In the end, they were “false messiahs.” Read more (subscription)

 

Amazon puts new limit on (some) customer reviews: No more than 5 a week by Todd Bishop at GeekWire. “Books, music and video are exempt from the limit, but the new cap applies to the rest of Amazon’s vast online selection of products.” Read more

 

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Washington Post: What happened when I tried ‘buy online, pick up in store’ on Black Friday by Sarah Halzack. “My visit to Walmart was quite speedy, clocking in five minutes and 54 seconds…I spent 12 minutes and 59 seconds in Macy’s — and it felt even longer than that…The most frustration came at Best Buy, where the process took 18 minutes and 41 seconds…When I got to Target, things weren’t looking good: The pickup counter wasn’t even staffed. But, improbably, I ended up getting out of there faster than anywhere else, in five minutes and 41 seconds.” Read more

 

Amazon Leans on Technology to Speed Training of Holiday Workers by Laura Stevens at Wall Street Journal. “To prepare for the flood of holiday orders already under way, the retail giant has been using technology ranging from touch screens to robots to shrink the time it takes to train new hires to as little as two days, compared with up to six weeks for a conventional warehouse job.” Read more (subscription)

 

Why does Walgreens charge 1,237% more than Costco for prescription drugs? by Laurie Roberts at The Arizona Republic via USA Today. Read more

 

Verto Analytics: Top 15 retailers based on the online activities of 20,000 U.S. consumers during October 2016 at Adweek. See the chart

 

Macy’s Web Site Buckles Under Heavy Traffic on Black Friday by Phil Wahba at Fortune. Read more

 

Amazon reportedly eyeing $1B acquisition of Middle Eastern e-commerce giant Souq.com by John Cook at GeekWire. Read more

 

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