Wal-Mart

While the twinkling lights and tinsel make 2011 seem like a typical year for holiday shopping, the truth is it's not. The biggest difference this year is with consumers themselves, specifically where and how they spend their money and how retailers are competing for those dollars.

Three more syringes have been found hidden inside clothing at a Wal-Mart in Georgia, raising the total to seven and prompting fears for customer safety. In addition to three other incidents reported last month, two shoppers and a staff member have found needles in different pairs of trousers.

Searching online wish lists, guessing or just directly asking people what they want as gifts is so 20th century, therefore Wal-Mart is launching a new approach for the holidays — its Shopycat app that scours Facebook profiles, updates, comments and likes to come up with gifts for your friends.

Last week, the Indian cabinet approved a 51 percent FDI in multi-brand retailing and a 100 percent FDI in single-brand retailing, opening the door for hypermarkets and supermarkets such as Wal-Mart and Tesco.

A protested Wal-Mart development in Toms River, N.J. will destroy habitat for the threatened northern pine snake, despite the fact that it already has a store in town — it's just a mile down the road and will be closed when the new supercenter opens.

San Francisco -- The 15 cities with the most shopping activity on Black Friday 2011 were Manhattan, N.Y.; San Francisco; Los Angeles; Brooklyn, N.Y.; San Jose, Calif.; Seattle; Chicago; San Diego; Houston; Atlanta; Dallas; Saint Louis; Portland, Ore.; Austin, Texas; and Minneapolis, according to mint.com, an online personal finance site. The 10 national merchants with the most shopping activity on Black Friday, mint.com reported, were Apple, Best Buy, Nordstrom, Kohl’s, Macy’s, Target, Wal-Mart, Gap, Old Navy and Amazon. After comparing user spend from Black Friday 2011 to last year’s spend, Mint.com found that: Atlanta, New York and Houston

Amazon.com and Wal-Mart are prodding more manufacturers to change their packaging to cut waste and alleviate “wrap rage,” the frustration felt when a product is difficult to open. The retailers have been pushing vendors to eliminate excessive and cumbersome packing materials, such as hard plastic clamshell casings that enclose electronics and wire ties used to secure toys to cardboard backings.

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.

In case you haven’t noticed the changes taking place in retail stores across the country, I'm here to report that orange is out and red and green are in. That’s right, the holiday season has officially begun. From tinsel to snowflakes, stores are already decked out in their holiday finest hoping to entice shoppers to open their wallets and spread some cheer.

Wal-Mart is improving customer experience by allowing shoppers to scan and pay for items away from the checkout counter. With Apple’s new EasyPay feature as part of its iOS app, shoppers with an iPhone 4 or 4S can buy some products simply by scanning the barcode, entering their Apple ID, and walking out with the item.