The brand name shopping holidays of Black Friday and Cyber Monday are past, and the procrastinators’ frenzy won’t begin for a few more weeks. Plus, consumers are groomed to wait for the end-of-season “fire sales” when retailers mark down excess inventory just to get rid of it before the holidays. Are retailers looking at a December lull between now and then? There’s still a lot of shopping to be done in the weeks leading up to Christmas, so “lull” may be a relative term. And, about those fire sales — we may have bad news for shoppers.
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Amazon’s holiday season was already looking bright with two-thirds of Americans signed on as Prime Members, and racking up as many as 50 percent of all online sales during a very digital Black Friday. But it seems Amazon’s Alexa-powered devices turned out to be the most celebrated success of the shopping weekend, with Amazon reporting “record” sales of its Echo devices, and “tens of millions” shopping with Alexa this season. It's a better, more customized and personalized version of Alexa as well, with developers getting more direct access to the skill users for whom they are programming. It’s early days, but it is beginning to look like a very voice-activated Christmas.  Read More...

It turns out that friends who book together but pay separately stay friends — and drive big returns to events and/or venues with inventory they’d like to sell them. Turning “split the check” into “buy with friends,” Fevo CEO Ari Daie told Karen Webster, increases the average number of tickets sold and gives those with tickets to sell or room blocks to fill the chance to acquire and reward those groups with special deals and offers. Read More...