Customs and regulations for shopping hours vary between countries and between cities.
Black Friday is a colloquial term for the Friday after Thanksgiving in the United States. It traditionally marks the start of the Christmas shopping season in the United States. Many stores offer highly promoted sales at discounted prices and often open early, sometimes as early as midnight or even on Thanksgiving. Some stores' sales continue to Monday or for a week.
Toys "R" Us is an American toy, clothing, and baby product retailer owned by Tru Kids and various others. The company was founded in 1957; its first store was built in April 1948, with its headquarters located in Parsippany-Troy Hills, New Jersey, in the New York metropolitan area.
Merchandising is any practice which contributes to the sale of products to a retail consumer. At a retail in-store level, merchandising refers to displaying products that are for sale in a creative way that entices customers to purchase more items or products.
Montgomery Ward is the name of two successive U.S. retail corporations. The original Montgomery Ward & Co. was a world-pioneering mail-order business and later also a leading department store chain that operated between 1872 and 2001. The current Montgomery Ward Inc. is a national online shopping and mail-order catalog retailer that started several years after the original Montgomery Ward shut down.
Sunday shopping or Sunday trading refers to the ability of retailers to operate stores on Sunday, a day that Christian tradition typically recognises as a day of rest. Rules governing shopping hours, such as Sunday shopping, vary around the world but many countries and subnational jurisdictions continue to ban or restrict Sunday shopping.
The Disney Store is a chain of specialty stores selling only Disney related items, many of them exclusive, under its own name and Disney Outlet. It was a business unit of Disney Consumer Products with the Disney Parks, Experiences and Products segment of The Walt Disney Company conglomerate.
Strawbridge's, formerly Strawbridge & Clothier, was a department store in the northeastern United States, with stores in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. The Center City Philadelphia flagship store was, in its day, a gracious urban emporium. The retailer started adding branch stores starting in the 1930s and, by their zenith in the 1980s, enjoyed annual sales of over a billion dollars By the 1990s, Strawbridge's became part of the May Department Stores conglomerate until May's acquisition by Federated Department Stores on August 30, 2005.
Build-A-Bear Workshop, Inc. is an American retailer headquartered in Saint Louis, Missouri that sells teddy bears and other stuffed animals and characters. Customers go through an interactive process in which the stuffed animal of their choice is assembled and tailored to their own preferences during their visit to the store. These preferences include numerous different stuffed animals, along with varying scents, sounds, and outfits. Build-A-Bear Workshop is the largest chain that operates in this style. The company's slogan was "Where Best Friends Are Made" from 1997–2013 when it was changed to "The Most Fun You'll Ever Make." As of April 2019, the company's president/CEO is Sharon Price John.
F&R Lazarus & Company – commonly known as Lazarus – was a regional department store with its retail chain operating primarily in the U.S. Midwest, and based in Columbus, Ohio. For over 150 years, Lazarus was influential in the American retail industry, particularly during the early 20th century as a founding partner in Federated Department Stores, and continued until the nameplate was retired on March 6, 2005, in favor of Macy's.
Christmas creep is a merchandising phenomenon in which merchants and retailers introduce Christmas-themed merchandise or decorations before the traditional start of the holiday shopping season, which in the United States is on the day after Thanksgiving. The term was first used in the mid-1980s.
A closeout or clearance sale is a discount sale of inventory either by retail or wholesale. It may be that a product is not selling well, or that the retailer is closing because of relocation, a fire, over-ordering, or especially because of bankruptcy. In the latter case, it is usually known as a going-out-of-business sale or liquidation sale, and is part of the process of liquidation. A hail sale is a closeout at a car dealership after hail damage.
Joske's, founded by German immigrant Julius Joske in 1867, was a department store chain originally based in San Antonio, Texas. In December 1928, Hahn Department Stores acquired the company along with the Titche-Goettinger department store of Dallas, and three years later Hahn became part of Allied Stores. Allied was taken over by Campeau in 1986, and Campeau in turn sold the Joske's chain in 1987 to Dillard's. All Joske's stores were then quickly converted into Dillard's locations.
Christmas Tree Shops is an American chain of specialty retail stores headquartered in Union, New Jersey. As of 2021, the chain operates 80 stores in 20 U.S. states.
The M. O'Neil Co. was a regional department store chain based in Akron, Ohio, United States. O'Neil's dominated the Akron and Canton retail markets. Founded in 1877, the store grew to several locations in northeastern Ohio. By the late 1980's, it was owned by May Department Stores, and in 1989 May merged it with its Cleveland division to form May Company Ohio, which was subsequently merged into its Pittsburgh division, Kaufmann's, in 1993. May Department Stores was purchased by Federated Department Stores in 2005, who merged all of its regional chains into Macy's in 2006.
Neiman Marcus Group, Inc. is an American integrated luxury retailer headquartered in Dallas, Texas, which owns Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, Horchow, and Last Call. Since September 2021, NMG has been owned by a group of investment companies led by Davidson Kempner Capital Management, Sixth Street Partners and Pacific Investment Management.
Pop-up retail, also known as pop-up store or flash retailing, is a trend of opening short-term sales spaces that last for days to weeks before closing down, often to catch onto a fad or scheduled event.
Super Saturday or Panic Saturday is the last Saturday before Christmas, a major day of revenue for American retailers, marking the end of the shopping season which begins on Black Friday. Super Saturday targets last-minute shoppers. Typically the day is ridden with one-day sales in an effort to accrue more revenue than any other day in the Christmas and holiday season. The date is slightly more likely to fall on December 22, 19, or 17, than on December 21 or 20 (57), and slightly less likely to occur on December 23 or 18 (56).
The International Merchandising Mart Mall is an outlet mall owned by CapitaLand Mall Trust, located in Jurong East, Singapore. Opened in 1991, it is a five-storey mall with 961,281 square feet (89,305.9 m2) of retail space. Besides retail stores, it also houses offices and warehouses for storage, which is advantageous in terms of cost efficiency to some retailers. The mall has capacity for 235 retail outlets and 430 non-retail outlets. Anchor tenants of the mall include Giant Hypermarket, Daiso department store, Popular Bookstore and Best Denki.
The economics of Christmas are significant because Christmas is typically a high-volume selling season for goods suppliers around the world. Sales increase dramatically as people purchase gifts, decorations, and supplies to celebrate. In the U.S., the "Christmas shopping season" starts as early as October. In Canada, merchants begin advertising campaigns just before Halloween, and step up their marketing following Remembrance Day on 11 November. In the UK and Ireland, the Christmas shopping season starts from mid November, around the time when high street Christmas lights are turned on. In the United States, it has been calculated that a quarter of all personal spending takes place during the Christmas/holiday shopping season. Figures from the U.S. Census Bureau reveal that expenditure in department stores nationwide rose from $20.8 billion in November 2004 to $31.9 billion in December 2004, an increase of 54 percent. In other sectors, the pre-Christmas increase in spending was even greater, due to a November through December buying surge of 100% in bookstores and 170% in jewelry stores. In the same year employment in American retail stores rose from 1.6 million to 1.8 million in the two months leading up to Christmas. This means that while consumers might spend more during this season, they also are given increased employment opportunities as sales rise to meet the increased demand.
