Executive Summary

• Over the last two weeks, our team covered early store openings on Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday and Giving Tuesday, which represent more than US $11 billion of sales, up 17% from last year. Mobile accounted for more than half of shopping visits and nearly a third of sales.
•  Watchmaker Swatch has signed a deal with Visa, in which Visa cardholders in Switzerland, Brazil and the US will be able to tap and pay for transactions with the new Swatch Bellamy, to launch sometime early in 2016.
•  Amazon released a video showing a drone delivering a small package from a warehouse to a suburban neighborhood in about 30 minutes. The drones will be able to carry packages of up to five pounds.
•  A new generation of bargain hunters is turning to discount and cash-and-carry chains, which experienced a sales compound annual growth rate of 18.7% from 2011–2014.