Happy Cyber Monday!  Below are some industry highlights from the last week.  Sources can be found in the hyperlinked text after the headline.

Note: I’ll be taking a short break with the weekly updates as I ramp up at my new job. More to come soon. Cheers!

Holiday:

• When and where do Black Friday’s biggest crowds actually hit? Link
• Black Friday shopping with thinner crowds as Americans spend more online. Link
• Black Friday News: fewer people in stores, Everlane gives profits to factory workers. Link
• US holiday sales on track amidst online boost. Link
• US store sales down slightly for Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Link
• Online sales surge ahead of brick-and-mortar retailers’ big day. Link
• Holiday shopping unlikely to cheer many investors. Link
• Thanksgiving/Black Friday online sales hit $4.5B, 34% of purchases made on mobile. Link
• Google shares Black Friday location data for marketers. Link

Brand/Retailer:

• Neiman Marcus web site suffers outages for second straight day. Link
• Burberry, Google launch interactive video experience at London flagship. Link
• Wal-Mart revamps ecommerce technology as Amazon applies pressure. Link
• Amazon touts new drone prototype, plans multiple designs. Link
• Kate Spade’s CMO talks phone-charging purses, Pixar and dressing room selfies. Link

Marketing/Social:

• How Nordstrom and Sephora are nailing social media going into Black Friday. Link
• J.Crew and American Girl embrace social commerce ads for the holidays. Link
• Target’s big digital holiday campaign combines Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram. Link
• Snapchat debuts Story Explorer, a more detailed approach to live events coverage. Link
• Shopping app Spring proves to be an inexpensive asset for young brands. Link
• Vine arrives on the Apple Watch. Link
• These ecommerce companies are seeing lots of referral traffic from Pinterest. Link

Startups:

• Jet.com snags a fresh $350M in funding. Link
• Deliveroo, an on-demand food delivery services, rasies $100M. Link
• Rocket Internet’s latest company is ZenRooms, a budget hotel platform for Southeast Asia. Link

International:

• Facebook prepares for instant articles push in Asia. Link
• Facebook expands free internet service in India. Link
• Apple plans to launch Apple Pay in China by February. Link
• China’s mobile payments war is going global. Link

Mobile/Emerging Tech:

• Swatch to start selling mobile payment watch in US in 2016. Link
• Smartphones overtake desktops for holiday shopping. Link
• Swatch teams up with Visa for a watch that can make payments. Link