This holiday season consumers seem primed to shop til they drop, with holiday sales projected to grow 3 to 4 percent. But customers do not appear to be buying apparel and are instead focusing on items like home furnishings. Sarah Quinlan, senior vice president of market insights with Mastercard Advisors, tells PYMNTS' Karen Webster that millennials are moving out of their parent’s basements, and that rings in the holiday cheer all around. Read More...

Despite the billions spent and the hundreds of thousands of hours engaged in the pursuit of gift buying each year, giving a good gift is actually hard work. Making matters worse, research shows that gift recipients are actually less forgiving about bad gifts than the givers think they are.  It’s also why some of the coolest retail innovations are about making gift giving foil proof — without resorting to gift card. Here’s the scoop.  Read More...

Black Friday is either dead or dying. That’s what the experts say, including PYMNTS’ own Karen Webster. The once-singular shopping day has been diluted across first a weekend, and then the entire month, creating more of a “Gray November.” However, the rest of the world is just hopping on the Black Friday bandwagon. Here’s how Europe, Tokyo, and Brazil are celebrating the American-invented holiday better than America. Read More...