This holiday season, Wal-Mart isn’t trumpeting big bargains only. It’s also bringing “Christmas” back into its marketing, after several years of playing down the term.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s Christmas cheer seems to be a hot trend this season as several other retailers including Kohl’s Corp. and Macy’s, a division of Federated Department Stores Inc., are also stepping up their Christmas marketing. The moves respond to mounting criticism from religious groups that staged boycotts against Wal-Mart and other merchants after they eliminated or de-emphasized “Christmas” in their advertising.
“We learned a lesson from that. Merry Christmas is now part of the vocabulary here at Wal-Mart,” said Linda Blakley, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman.
Wal-Mart said Thursday that it will launch its first Christmas-specific TV ad in several years, feature Christmas shops, previously called Holiday Shops, and increase the number of seasonal merchandise labeled “Christmas” instead of “holiday” by 60 percent.
Macy’s is adding Christmas signage in all of its department stores and Kohl’s is playing up Christmas this year in its TV, print and radio advertising, according to Vicki Shamion, a Kohl’s spokeswoman.
Still, not everyone is following suit.
“We are going to continue to use the term holiday because there are several holidays throughout that time period, and we certainly need to be respectful of all of them,” said Dawn Bryant, a spokeswoman at Best Buy Co. Inc., whose advertising omits any reference to Christmas.
– AP Business Writer Anne D’Innocenzio New shopping search engine allows shoppers to shop by image SAN MATEO, Calif. (AP) – So you want those sleek pair of black boots worn by supermodel Tyra Banks or the bling bling sported by Paris Hilton.
This holiday season, customers can get their chance with a new Web site called Like.com that bills itself as the first visual search engine, allowing consumers to search for items by appearance instead of just text and then purchase similar versions – at all price points – from 200 merchants’ Web sites.
The site, operated by San Mateo, Calif.-based Riya, an expert in visual computing, allows customers to click on images of celebrities wearing accessories or on pictures of handbags, jewelry, shoes and watches. In a few weeks, the site will add clothing, according to Riya’s CEO and co-founder Munjal Shah.
Eventually, customers will be able to download their own images onto the site.
Shah said that the site features about two million different products from such merchants as zappos.com and landsend.com, and the company is adding 30,000 different products a day.
Like.com uses face recognition technology; it looks inside a photo and creates a digital signature that describes the photo’s content and enables a more accurate search for similar looking items.
Latest survey reaffirms growing power of gift cards NEW YORK (AP) – Once considered impersonal and a bit tacky, gift cards’ popularity continues to grow among consumers.
A survey released Thursday by Discover Card found that three-quarters of respondents said giving a gift card ensures that the recipient “will get what he or she truly wants.” Almost as many – about two-thirds – said gift cards were “easy and convenient” for both the giver and the recipient.
Asked how they felt about receiving a gift card, some 58 percent said they would be happy because they could buy what they wanted, while 26 percent said they would be “touched” because of the giver’s thoughtfulness. Still, 9 percent said they’d be disappointed because “it’s not personal.” The study was the second annual survey conducted for Discover Card, the payment card subsidiary of Discover Financial Services LLC, which is headquartered in Riverwoods, Ill. Discover Financial is a business unit of investment bank Morgan Stanley.
Asked about types of cards, some 49 percent said they like to give a store card – such as one issued at Target, Macy’s or Borders – while 30 percent said they’d choose a general purpose card – such as one issued by Visa, American Express or Discover. A total of 10 percent said they’d likely purchase both types.
The survey of 1,013 adults was conducted in October by the ap Research Corp. based in Princeton, N.J.
— AP Business Writer Eileen Powell Ready-made meals grow in popularity for holidays ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) – Forget slaving away in the kitchen over that roast turkey and sweet potato pie this holiday season.
Entire holiday spreads, complete with sides, gravy and dessert, can now be ordered at most major supermarkets.
Upscale grocer Wegmans, which operates stores in the northeast, expects sales of prepared holiday meals to increase 30 percent this year. The popularity of the meals prompted the Rochester-based company to expand its selections over the years to include kosher turkey and prime rib dinners. And Hannaford Bros. supermarkets, based in Scarborough, Maine, is adding more side dishes this season in response to strong sales growth in the category, according to spokeswoman Caren Epstein.
“Meal time in America is changing. An increasing percent of the population might not have the time or know-how to prepare these giant Thanksgiving or Christmas meals,” said Michael Sansolo, a spokesman for the Food Marketing Institute in Washington, D.C.
The group doesn’t track sales of prepared meals for the holidays, but Sansolo notes supermarket sales peak in November and December. Most of that boost typically came from ingredients for home-cooked meals, but that has shifted in recent years to ready-made meals, Sansolo said.
Hannaford, which operates 150 stores in New York and New England, offers cooked meals that take two hours to heat up and include a turkey or smoked ham, mashed potatoes, rolls, gravy, and a pie. This year the company is offering more sides and “turducken” – a boneless turkey stuffed with a duck, which is then stuffed with a chicken.
