Tagged: Retail Shopping

Having your groceries delivered might seem like a self-indulgent luxury.

But researchers at the University of Washington have found that, most of the time, you can feel good about doing something for the environment when you order your groceries online and have them delivered instead of making a trip to the store.

“We like to call it 'the bus for groceries,'” said Anne Goodchild, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at UW.

Some shoppers are gearing up to hit the stores this evening for Black Friday sales that have now crept into Thursday. Sears and Walmart are starting their sales at 8 pm, and Target at 9 pm. But what motivates people to brave the Black Friday shopping frenzy?

Jane Boyd Thomas is a marketing professor at Winthrop University in South Carolina. She wanted to understand the ritual of Black Friday shopping – why some people have turned it into a family tradition.

Another landmark retailer is leaving Seattle’s Pioneer Square. 

Masins Fine Furnishing and Interior Design has put its building up for lease and started looking for another Seattle location where its customers won’t get so many parking tickets.

A surprisingly solid March – that's the consensus about last month's retail sales.  Despite cold weather and climbing gas prices, shoppers spent a lot more money last month than they did in March a year ago.

Costco and Nordstrom are among the local companies that are benefiting.

Nordstrom has jumped deeper into the luxury online retailing world by acquiring the "flash sale" website HauteLook for $270 million. The Seattle-based chain made the announcement on the heels of a report citing regular-price sales of "historically high levels."

Here’s some holiday cheer: Consumer spending is up since last year. The increase is a small one, at about 2%. The National Retail Federation expects that number to rise to 3% by the end of the season. Why the increase?