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All bulked up with cavernous stores and an expanded merchandise assortment, Restoration Hardware is building muscle in the hotly competitive home furnishings space. The retailer is undergoing what CEO Gary Friedman calls a "real estate transformation" as it ditches small-format stores and goes in for larger ones, including Full Line Design galleries ranging from around 14,000 square feet to roughly 45,000 square feet of interior space. Restoration Hardware is also upping its game on the merchandising front by expanding assortments, raising the page count of its catalogs and adding catalogs in new categories such as rugs.

Knit hats, "ugly sweaters," NHL jerseys, women's apparel and Derek Jeter merchandise. Those best-selling items are leading the pack at Fanatics.com, the online sports retailer that expects to process 10 times normal volume — roughly 700,000 packages — on Cyber Monday. In addition to running Fanatics.com, the retailer also powers 300 websites for all the major U.S. sports leagues, as well as collegiate and other professional teams, and some retailers such as J.C. Penney. "Today will be the single biggest sales day in the history of our company," Fanatics CEO Doug Mack said. 

Hammacher Schlemmer is pioneering what may well be the next evolution of catalog shopping with the launch of what it describes as the "first augmented reality catalog." To access the catalog, users download the free Hammacher Schlemmer app for iPad, and then scan specially marked catalog pages to overlay a three-dimensional image of a product that literally jumps off the page. Users can zoom in and out, spin the item 360 degrees, play videos, and easily access helpful information such as user manuals and customer reviews with just a touch. Items can even be purchased directly from the app.

Amazon.com employee Rejinaldo Rosales used to wander stacks of shelves to pick up merchandise for orders before finally returning to his station to place them in bins and send them to their next stop. But this summer, squat orange robots, called Kiva, began zooming around the shelves instead, picking up goods and carrying them to Rosales at his station. The result? What used to take hours of walking can happen in mere minutes instead. While walking the aisles was "good cardio," the new system lets him get through more orders since he stands in one place, Rosales said. 

IBM today reported strong online and mobile sales for Cyber Monday, capping a record five-day span for holiday shopping, based on consumer transaction data analyzed in real time by the IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark. The data-driven insight gives retailers more than 370 performance indicators to benchmark themselves against industry peers to drive more targeted customer engagements. Online sales grew 8.5 percent compared to 2013, with mobile sales up 27.6 percent year-over-year. 

The Home Depot will buy HD Supply's Hardware Solutions unit, formerly known as Crown Bolt, for an undisclosed amount. Atlanta-based Home Depot said the acquisition boosts it supply chain capabilities and hardware product offerings. The deal is expected to close by the end of 2014. HD Supply Hardware Solutions supplies fasteners and builders hardware to retailers in the United States. It was The Home Depot's 2013 Hardware Vendor of the Year.

If the weekend surrounding Black Friday is really the important economic indicator it's made out to be, there may be trouble coming. Total spending over the weekend dropped 11 percent from a year earlier, according to the National Retail Federation. Fewer people shopped than did last year; the decline encompassed both physical stores and websites. And those who did make purchases during the long weekend spent less money. The shopping festivities aren't over, of course, and Cyber Monday carries the expectation of generating more online sales than any day over the holiday weekend. 

Best Buy's website suffered sporadic technical issues throughout the Thanksgiving weekend, creating an extended outage during one of the year's busiest shopping periods. After a litany of shopper complaints engulfed the retailer's Facebook and Twitter feeds late Friday afternoon, the company initially attributed the blackout to heavy traffic. However, consumers were still complaining about the lack of service early Saturday, suggesting the problem could be more serious.

Online shoppers have already seen a bounty of deals served up on Black Thursday and Black Friday. But Cyber Monday brings with it a fresh crop of promotions, and thus offers incentive to fire up your tablet or laptop once again and check some gifts off your shopping list. Here's what you need to know if you're planning to fill up a digital shopping cart on Monday: 

Billabong, the surfwear brand that lost 99 percent of its market value after taking on debt to build a store network, plans to start opening new outlets again as it tries to reignite profits. Billabong is ready to open new stores "right now," CEO Neil Fiske said. The company based in Gold Coast, Australia, closed or sold about 34 percent of its locations over the past three years as it slashed debt by A$394 million ($333 million). "Stores are key to a brand's health over time," Fiske said in an interview in Sydney.