Retail Stores

Daffy's has announced plans to open a store in New York's Times Square. The discount retailer has signed a lease for a 28,000-sq.-ft. store in the former New York Times building on 44th Street. The new store will have a ground-floor entrance, but the bulk of the space will be on the basement level. The Times Square store is scheduled to open in fall 2011, and the company hopes to add a total of 14 New York-area stores before 2015.

It's beginning to look a lot like a Merry Christmas after all for retailers. Sales projections are increasing nearly every week as even shoppers who said they were finished hit malls this week. Now stores are starting to say they expect the 2011 holiday season to be even better.

Almost 74 percent of shoppers completed gift buying in the week ended Dec. 18, spurring faster sales growth than the previous three weeks.

Many retail advertisers mistakenly scale back their search campaigns after Christmas, but lots of search traffic and sales occur after Dec. 25. You might be surprised to learn that 9 percent of consumers don’t even begin their holiday shopping until post Christmas.

The estimated gain in U.S. luxury goods sales is outpacing the overall expected 3.5 percent jump in retail sales for 2010, a prominent trade group said.

As many as 138 million U.S. shoppers could be hunting for Black Friday bargains during the three days after Thanksgiving, according to a retail trade group survey released on Thursday.

Consumers were asked three years in a row about what promotions and offers they want for the holidays, and it hasn’t changed much over time. They're focused on sales, discounts and free shipping.

Bailey, Banks & Biddle, which traces its roots back to 1832 in Philadelphia, is being revived. Five stores have already opened in Austin, Houston and Plano, Texas as well as St. Louis and King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.