’Tis the season to shop, shop, shop

Jacqueline Kahn, co-owner of The Rustic Sparrow, gets in the holiday spirit. Photo: Shawna Henrie, http://bleudogfotography.com

From The Escondido Promenade to Westfield North County regional mall, from Grand Avenue to Welk Village, holiday shopping is in the Great Grapevine air. The National Retail Federation expects U.S. Holiday shopping to increase by 3.7 percent this season.

Top-selling items so far this season included Lego Star Wars, the Barbie Dream House, Samsung 4K television sets and Apple Inc’s iPad Mini. Star Wars toys were among the items most frequently out of stock, Adobe said in a report provided for Reuters.

“Many businesses fared better this year because they planned it out better,” said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at NPD Group, a retail industry research firm. “Overall, pretty much every retailer performed better than in years past.”

Toys R’Us stands at the ready for Lego star War sales at The Escondido Promenade

Toys R’Us stands at the ready for Lego star War sales at The Escondido Promenade. (Photo: Shawna Henrie: http://bleudogfotography.com/.)

Missed out on the deal you were hoping to grab on Black Friday or Cyber Monday? Good news! You still have time to save. But to save the most money, you’ll have to be surgical in your shopping, according to Fortune magazine

While retailers will be offering an endless line of sales between now and the end of the year, there are select days when you’re more likely to find the lowest prices. And they vary, depending on what you seek.

Coupon-centric Website Rather-Be-Shopping looked at pricing patterns and coupon offers for the past eight years to model the sales patterns of retailers – and found that there are specific days in December when you’re more likely to save a few bucks.

The sweet spot, overall, is in the middle of the month. Dec. 16-18 is your next big window of opportunity for many products, though you’ll need to strike sooner for some big-ticket items. The site’s findings are largely focused on online shopping, though they do not exclude brick and mortar stores.