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NEW YORK — This year’s holiday shopping season is under way. Walmart is holding fewer flash sales in favor of everyday-low prices and its price-match policy.This year’s holiday shopping season is under way. Walmart is holding fewer flash sales in favor of everyday-low prices and its price-match policy.
Target is sprucing up its stores, hiring hundreds of visual merchandisers to make sure displays shimmer and shine. Kmart is reprising its no-money-down layaway plan. And Amazon is adding 100,000 seasonal employees, mostly for its 50 fulfillment centers and 20 sorting facilities nationwide, to make sure holiday gifts get to their destination on time.
Walmart’s alteration of its deals strategy comes as more consumers are shelving the traditional shopping marathons such as Black Friday and making purchases in short bursts of activity using their mobile phones.
Walmart said it is anticipating an increase in online and mobile shopping, and that it expects about 75% of its online traffic over the holidays to come from mobile devices. The company has launched a mobile app to reduce in-store pickup times on orders placed online during the holidays. Additionally, it is placing new orange pickup signs in stores that it hopes will streamline in-store pickups.
Walmart opened fulfillment centers in Indiana, Pennsylvania and Georgia in recent months to better handle supply and shorten ship times.
Target is expanding its curbside pickup for mobile orders via a partnership with the app Curbside that allows customers to shop Target inventory and pick it up at a store without leaving their car. Target made the feature available at 121 stores from November 1, up from 21 stores before that date.
Target has about 460 stores that double as shipping warehouses, up from 100 or so a year ago.
“People are increasingly using their phones to research and buy products in stores,” Google said in a recent analysis of data from an Ipsos MediaCT survey on consumer holiday shopping behavior. “More than half (52%) of shoppers plan to use a smartphone for holiday shopping this year before they visit a store, and a whopping 82% of smartphone users will consult their phone while in a store.”
Sunday is consistently the most popular day for shopping on smartphones, Google noted. On average, there are 18% more mobile shopping searches on Sundays.
Retailers are making it easier for customers to shop online during the holiday season. From November 1 through Christmas Day, Target is offering free shipping and returns of online orders. Target this year is also offering Target.com shoppers the ability to buy and ship items to more than 200 countries. The company said that this feature will continue to be available after the holidays are over. Target said it is able to accept payment in nearly 60 currencies, thanks to its partnership with Borderfree Inc., which operates a technology platform that permits U.S. retailers to transact business with consumers in 100 countries around the world.
