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Tag: iab-holiday shopping

  • 'Tis the season for family holiday projects and gifts that give back | CNN

    'Tis the season for family holiday projects and gifts that give back | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Whether you’re hoping to do something more meaningful with your kids than just hitting the mall, or if you’re just looking for some gifts that give back, here are some ideas that could bring more joy this holiday season.

    Gathering friends or family together to assemble a gift box for a needy recipient could be a new, purposeful holiday tradition that you start this year.

    Kynd Kits are an activity for the whole family. You choose a cause or group of people important to you, and then request the corresponding kit.

    Each kit will contain items specifically requested by people in those groups. You assemble the pieces together, write a card, then send it off. Among the recipients you can choose from this year: the homeless, victims of domestic violence, senior citizens, LGBTQ people and foster children.

    If your family would like to help a foster child this holiday season, Together We Rise is helping kids without permanent homes by providing colorful bags to tote their items around in. (Many foster kids lug their worldly possessions around in trash bags.) They send you a panel to decorate, that you then send back. They attach each artwork panel to a duffel bag, which is stuffed with a teddy bear, a blanket, a hygiene kit and a coloring book.

    A family art project can brighten up the walls of a long-term care facility. The Foundation for Hospital Art will send you a kit, complete with pre-drawn canvases and art supplies. You color it in, create one panel of your own design and send it back with the pre-addressed UPS label.

    If you can knit or crochet, consider helping Knots of Love. You could knit a beanie to support a patient going through chemotherapy or a blanket to warm a baby in the NICU.

    The Salvation Army’s “Angel Tree” program is online again this year, making it easy to shop for a child in need. Just enter your zip code, add the requested items from their registry to your cart, and the Salvation Army does the rest.

    For your caffeine-loving friends, why not send them bird-friendly coffee? These coffee beans are grown under a forest canopy that provides a habitat for birds – important since the North American bird population has decreased by almost three billion birds since 1970.

    And if you want to spend your money at a local bookstore but don’t want to leave the house, consider buying from bookshop.org. They partner with independent book sellers across the country to send your dollars to stores that really need it.

    If you want to support Black-owned businesses this Christmas (or any time of year) the website and app https://www.supportblackowned.com/ helps you find shops and services all over the US.

    The EatOkra app helps you find Black-owned restaurants and food services (buying a gift card helps keep small eateries in business).

    You can also search Instagram by using the hashtag #SupportBlackBusiness.

    Finally, many larger retailers are giving back this season. If you just want a name-brand gift sure to wow a picky tween or teen, many stores and brands partner with charities to give back over the holiday season.

    Some companies even make it a yearlong mission to do good.

    If you are looking for a present for someone worried about the environment, Patagonia gives a portion of all profits to environmental causes.

    Ivory Ella donates up to 50% of its profits to charities helping elephants, including Save the Elephants.

    Sock company Bombas donates a pair of socks to a needy person, for every pair sold.

    And what Christmas stocking couldn’t use a fuzzy pencil case and some unicorn-themed erasers? Yoobi sells colorful pens, pencils and stationery, and for every item purchased, they donate a school supply to a child in need.

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  • Retail sales continued to fall in December as shoppers battled inflation | CNN Business

    Retail sales continued to fall in December as shoppers battled inflation | CNN Business

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    Minneapolis
    CNN
     — 

    It was a ho-hum end to 2022 for spending in America.

    US retail sales continued their fall in December, dropping by 1.1% as inflation remained high, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday.

    That’s the largest monthly decline since December 2021, and practically every category (except for building materials, groceries and sporting goods) saw sales drop from the prior month.

    Economists had expected sales to fall by just 0.8% for the month, according to Refinitiv. The November number was revised down to -1%.

    All in all, the final retail sales report for 2022 shows a muted finish to a holiday season that crept even further into October versus the traditional late-November and December.

    October was the last strong retail sales month of 2022, as discounting and slowing inflation prompted consumers to shop more then, said Kayla Bruun, economic analyst at Morning Consult.

    “I think the hope was that this was going to lead to a little bit more momentum heading into the holiday season,” she said. “But really, it turned out to be more of just an early bump that actually took away from some of the spending that otherwise might have happened in November and December.”

    The Commerce Department’s retail sales data is not adjusted for inflation, which reached a 40-year high in June before falling during the second half of 2022, hitting 6.5% for the 12-month period ending in December, according to the latest Consumer Price Index reading released last week.

    Wholesale price growth is also cooling significantly: The Producer Price Index for December measured 6.2%, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released Wednesday.

    During the November and December holiday season, retail sales grew 5.3% over 2021 to $936.3 billion, the National Retail Federation reported Wednesday.

    The holiday total, which is not adjusted for inflation and excludes sales at auto dealerships, gas stations and restaurants, falls short of the trade association’s projections of 6% to 8% holiday sales growth.

    “We knew it could be touch-and-go for final holiday sales given early shopping in October that likely pulled some sales forward plus price pressures and cold, stormy weather,” said Jack Kleinhenz, NRF’s chief economist, in a statement. “The pace of spending was choppy, and consumers may have pulled back more than we had hoped, but these numbers show that they navigated a challenging, inflation-driven environment reasonably well. The bottom line is that consumers are still engaged and shopping despite everything happening around them.”

    Consumer spending has remained robust despite inflation, rising interest rates and recession fears. However, some economic data suggests that activity may be losing some steam and that Americans are running out of dry powder.

    “I think the consumers has gotten very active in managing their household budget and what they’re willing to spend on,” said Matt Kramer, KPMG’s national sector leader for consumer and retail. “They’re spending more time looking for the deals and being thoughtful about when they make purchases.”

    That’s seen in the monthly sales declines in categories like motor vehicles, which were down 1.2% from November; furniture, down 2.5%; and electronics, down 1.1%, according to Wednesday’s report.

    “Certainly on those large purchases, financed purchases where interest rates play in, the consumers are pushing those decisions out and extending their buying cycles around the larger categories,” he said.

    The next few months are traditionally the slowest for retailers, but headwinds like credit card debt and stubborn inflation may exacerbate that, said Ted Rossman, senior industry analyst for Bankrate.

    “A further slowdown in purchasing appears likely, at least in the near-term,” Rossman said in a statement.

    Discretionary spending is usually the first to go, with people typically cutting back on travel, eating out and other expenditures, said Amanda Belarmino, assistant professor of hospitality at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

    However, the post-pandemic pent-up demand that fueled strong services spending in 2022 is still going strong. Spending on food services and drinking places was up 12.1% in December from the year before.

    “What we’ve seen in restaurants, tourism, hospitality is completely contrary to what we normally see in an economic slowdown,” Belarmino said. “We have seen consumers continue to make that spending. But where you’re seeing those slowdowns are things like people canceling their streaming services, canceling their Peloton, canceling their home services. So it seems that consumers are making those trade-offs.”

    However, shifts in tipping activity could be harbinger of shifts to come.

    “The average tip rate in the US had gone up to about 18% to 20%, and there are some indicators that’s going to be falling back down toward the 15% range,” Belarmino said. “It’s not a huge thing, but it’s a way for consumers to save money.”

    How spending activity holds up in the service industries will be a critical indicator in the coming months, Morning Consult’s Bruun said, adding that a strong labor market should help to prevent a dramatic collapse in spending.

    “That has been the component of consumer spending that’s been driving growth,” she said. “And it’s going to need to, going forward, because we’ve really seen that goods demand has been tapped out to a large extent.”

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  • Macy’s says its holiday sales will be lower, citing inflation pressures | CNN Business

    Macy’s says its holiday sales will be lower, citing inflation pressures | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Turns out inflation may have put a damper on the holidays.

    Macy’s chair and CEO Jeff Gennette said lulls during the non-peak holiday weeks “were deeper than anticipated” and that consumers will continue to feel pressured into 2023, in a Q4 update Friday.

    Macy’s said Friday its net sales from the holiday quarter will likely be at the low-end to mid-point of its previously issued range of $8.16 billion to $8.4 billion. The retailer said its adjusted diluted earnings per share are expected to be between $1.47 to $1.67.

    In last year’s fourth quarter results, Macy’s earned $8.67 billion, above analysts’ forecasts, and had an adjusted earnings per share of $2.45.

    Total end-of-quarter inventories are on track to fall slightly below last year and down mid-teens relative to 2019.

    Gennette said its Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales met expectations and the week leading up to and following Christmas beat them.

    “Overall, our occasion apparel and gift-giving business were strengths, and inventory composition and price points aligned with customers’ needs,” Gennette said, noting that its high-end Bloomingdale’s stores and cosmetics line Bluemercury continued to outperform forecasts.

    Macy’s warning may provide an early clue to investors wondering if high inflation has hampered shopping demand during the holidays.

    Americans spent more this season to keep up with high prices. US retail sales increased 7.6% during the period between November 1 to December 24 compared to the same time last year, according to the Mastercard Spending Pulse. US retail sales were lower than expected in November, falling 0.6% during the month, which was the weakest performance in nearly a year.

    Gennette warned that consumer sentiment is unlikely to change with the new year.

    “Based on current macro-economic indicators and our proprietary credit card data, we believe the consumer will continue to be pressured in 2023, particularly in the first half, and have planned inventory mix and depth of initial buys accordingly,” the Macy’s CEO said.

    The company expects to report full results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2022 in early March 2023.

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  • The hottest holiday gift is a massive, half pound Fruit Loop | CNN Business

    The hottest holiday gift is a massive, half pound Fruit Loop | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Just in time for the holidays, artist collective MSCHF is releasing its newest playful art piece: a giant, 930-calorie, $19.99 fruit loop.

    MSCHF, a Brooklyn-based group of artists, is no stranger to headlines documenting their provocative, irreverent releases. Most recently, they operated an ATM at Art Basel Miami Beach that displayed a public leaderboard of users’ bank balances, ranked from highest to lowest.

    Their previous projects have also played with modifications of “ready-made” items – like the unofficial Nike shoes they released in collaboration with Lil Nas X, which triggered a lawsuit and recall.

    The unauthorized massive fruit loop is the group’s latest lighthearted experiment with consumerism. As the name suggests, it’s a single loop of the classic cereal that’s big enough to fill the whole box. The giant cereal pieces will go on sale on December 19th for $19.99. Each one weighs “almost half a pound,” according to MSCHF’s website for the product.

    Daniel Greenberg, MSCHF’s co-founder, told CNN that an extremely limited number of the huge loops will be released – and he expects they’ll sell out quickly.

    The project was a natural extension of the group’s ethos, according to Greenberg. “We look at things in culture and figure out how to make a twist on it,” he said. “Cereal was definitely, you know, one of these cultural readymades in our mind. You could go anywhere in the world and show it to someone and they would know what it is.”

    But fans looking for a deeper meaning might be out of luck. The intent, said Greenberg, was, “‘Just like, let’s make a big f—ing fruit loop and that was it.”

    Developing the cereal, which the website specifies was not affiliated with or endorsed by Kellogg’s, required a months-long process of reverse engineering.

    “We take everything we do extremely seriously,” Greenberg said. “The easy solution would have been like, basically making a cake or a doughnut.”

    But instead of just making a doughnut or cake in the shape of the classic cereal loop, MSCHF worked to replicate the exact texture and taste of the real Kellogg’s cereal – and Greenberg says the final result is almost indistinguishable from the real thing.

    Greenberg emphasized that MSCHF is fundamentally an art project that caters to collectors. They’re not trying to compete with Kellogg’s – and although the product packaging shown on the website is clearly riffing a real box of Fruit Loops, it also includes MSCHF’s logo and states the product is not associated with Kellogg’s.

    That may be so but the cereal company doesn’t quite see it that way. In an emailed statement, Kellogg spokesperson Kris Bahner told CNN that the “Big Fruit Loop” constitutes copyright infringement.

    “Kellogg Company does not have a relationship with MSCHF and we were not involved in the creation of the Big Fruit Loop. The campaign does not accurately depict the Kellogg’s brand,” said Bahner in the statement. “Given the trademark infringement and unauthorized use of our brand, we have reached out to the company seeking an amicable resolution.”

    Because of MSCHF’s “robust fan base,” Greenberg thinks most buyers probably won’t actually be eating anything out of the boxes. “The majority of people will want to put it on their shelves and keep it,” he said.

    MSCHF fans can expect more Alice-in-Wonderland-esque drops in the future. Next year, the collective plans to introduce another familiar product made “microscopic,” although Greenberg wouldn’t specify what it was.

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