Best Buy

New York City -- E-commerce spending jumped 26% on Black Friday, according to comscore. Black Friday web sales totaled $816 million, up from $648 million last year, comScore reported. “With brick-and-mortar retail also reporting strong gains on Black Friday, it's clear that the heavy promotional activity had a positive impact on both channels," said Gian Fulgoni, chairman, comScore. Fifty million Americans visited online retail sites on Black Friday, up 35% over last year, comScore said. Each of the top five retail sites reported double-digit gains in visitors, in percentage terms, led by top retail site Amazon. Walmart ranked second,

Black Friday is an unforgiving affair. Retailers duke it out, using middle-of-the-night openings, limited-time promotions and mega sales as their weapons in the battle to grab as much share of consumers' holiday shopping budgets as possible.

Target received six red and white Target bags full of petitions yesterday signed by 190,000 people to protest stores opening for Black Friday sales at midnight the morning after Thanksgiving.

While thousands of people her age are busy camping out in various Occupy movements around the country, a Florida woman decided to occupy the sidewalk outside her local Best Buy in order to be the first person to be disappointed by the Black Friday offerings on Nov. 25.

Calling assortment planning "probably the biggest initiative we have in the next two years," Kohl's CEO Kevin Mansell revealed during a recent conference call that the department store retailer would be rolling out a new assortment planning tool with "our technology partner SAS. "We've talked at length about the need to improve how we tailor our merchandise more appropriately by market so that it's on target to the customer that lives in that market," he added. "A lot of that has to do with having the right tools for our merchants and planners to use so that job becomes

Best Buy's attempt to cross the Atlantic and deliver US-style retailing to British consumers has failed miserably, with the retailer planning to close all of its big box stores in the UK. It may have suffered from bad timing, but its retreat shows that even the most successful retail formats can fail if they do not adapt to changes in their target markets. US electronics retailer Best Buy has signaled its brand's retreat from the UK, just 18 months after it opened its first big box store. By the time it closes all of its stores at the end

Best Buy Co. said Thursday that it has eliminated a $10 recycling fee for electronics items with screens to make its recycling program more convenient for consumers. The retailer's in-store recycling program accepts TVs, computer monitors, DVD players, cell phones and other types of consumer electronics. Items with tube screens of up to 32 inches and flat panel screens of up to 60 inches are eligible. Best Buy said its programs collected 83 million pounds of electronics and 73 million pounds of appliances in 2010. The chain, which is based in Minneapolis, had 1,105 big-box U.S. stores at the

PALO ALTO, Calif. — Old Navy has become the latest retailer to partner with Shopkick, a shopping mobile app that rewards shoppers for walking into stores. Customers who have the shopkick app on their smartphones will be able to receive walk-in rewards at any of Old Navy's nearly 1,000 U.S. locations, Shopkick reported. To celebrate, Old Navy will offer $10 off of a $40 purchase plus 150 Shopkick reward points for the partnership's first weekend (Nov. 10 to 13), available exclusively through the Shopkick app: shopkick.com/oldnavy, according to a company press release. The Shopkick app works by detecting a

Best Buy, the world’s largest consumer electronics retailer, agreed to buy Carphone Warehouse Group’s stake in its U.S. mobile phone joint venture for 838 million pounds ($1.34 billion) and close the U.K. stores it opened less than two years ago. The purchase of Carphone Warehouse’s interest in a profit- sharing agreement for the Best Buy mobile business in the U.S. and Canada will boost earnings next year, excluding items, the Richfield, Minn.-based retailer said today in a statement. Carphone Warehouse will return almost all of the proceeds to shareholders, according to a separate statement.

Forget getting up early for Black Friday, shoppers will now need to stay up late. Best Buy announced it's joining Macy's, Target and Kohl's in opening at midnight following Thanksgiving.