Target

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.

The annual battle for the minds and wallets of toy-buying parents has gotten off to a particularly fierce start, with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. slashing prices in an effort to keep Target Corp. from being the low-cost leader this holiday shopping season.

Same-store retail sales for October were up 1.7 percent, a smaller increase compared to the gains in September with 2.8 percent and 2.3 percent in October 2009, according to Kantar Retail's monthly report of 31 U.S. retailers.

U.S. retailers from discounter Target Corp. to teen apparel chain Zumiez reported October same-store sales above Wall Street expectations, helped by unique merchandise and cheap prices.

"Women age 40 to 55 have pretty much held their jobs," Chicago retail analyst James Dion says. "In effect, the Nordstroms, the Saks, the Bloomies have to survive on that 40-plus customer because she's the one that's got the money."

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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.

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.

Increased online sales, more temporary stores and guarded optimism about the season are leading some retailers to expand their workforces more than usual for the holidays.

Target has reconfigured its smaller stores to fit its P-fresh format, introduced earlier in the year. The new stores will feature 90 percent of the categories found at a SuperTarget, but with much less of a selection.