Editor's Note: School Bells Giving Way to Sleigh Bells

There are other reasons for retailers to be optimistic about the upcoming holiday season. According to the NRF's recent Global Port Tracker report, which helps retailers understand what's happening at the nation's ports by monitoring things like container volume imports and gate operations, there's been a significant increase in imports for August, September and October, the three key months of the year when retailers import the bulk of the merchandise they'll sell during the holiday season.