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While Walmart and Target fight over toys, retail consultant Howard Davidowitz says the outcome of their battle will be decided in the electronics section, not the toy aisle. Christmas creep gets dialed back a notch — most retailers waited until now to begin their holiday push in earnest. And one of the few economic reports of the week takes the consumers' pulse. Listen to MarketWatch News Break.

While Wal-Mart and Target fight over toys, retail consultant Howard Davidowitz says the outcome of their battle will be decided in the electronics section, not the toy aisle.

According to results of Shop.org's eHoliday Study conducted by BIGresearch, 84.8% of online retailers will offer free shipping at some point during the holiday season, and 31.4% said these offers will begin earlier this year than a year ago. Shoppers may even see more free shipping deals this year, as 36.7% of retailers said their budget for free shipping is higher than last holiday season.

The year’s most popular discount shopping event, referring to the Friday after Thanksgiving, is arriving ahead of Halloween this year, with some promotions beginning this week and others throughout November.

Target Corp., the mass merchandiser with about 1,750 stores nationwide, for months has been shortchanging its customers who use certain manufacturers’ coupons by crediting them for a fraction of their face value.

If there's a halo product for retail this holiday season, it's Steve Jobs' iPad, the fastest-selling new product in Apple's history.

Groupon has scored another nationwide retailer with a deal on Monday featuring L'Oreal's natural cosmetic franchise, The Body Shop.

For the past several years, Black Friday has ranked as the largest shopping day of the year, in both sales and traffic. But analysts say a host of factors is converging to make it likely that Black Friday 2010 will set a record.

Two key trends have dominated the retail sector this year: the robust growth of online shopping and the shift to cash payments from credit.

The two may seem in opposition as online shoppers often use credit to pay for their purchases, but more often online retailers are trying to woo the cash-only customer by providing alternative payment methods.