American shoppers are working the last nerve of the U.S. retail industry this holiday shopping season with last-minute shopping activity that has forced many retail chains to increase their own last-minute activities. Many major retail chains have unexpectedly extended their store hours this week in order to increase the number of last minutes that shoppers will have to spend money on Christmas Eve, and even on Christmas Day. Despite the gift of extra shopping hours, though, the best last-minute shopping options may still be found online with the websites that offer e-gift cards and e-gift certificates.

After Super Saturday snowstorms sucker-punched both retailers and shoppers, many major retail chains scrambled to extend store hours to make up for the sales-stifling weather disaster. In the hours and minutes before Christmas Day 2009, the most desperate of the last-minute consumers will be found roaming the aisles of these stores looking for anything that is marginally appropriate and gift-worthy. The stores that will be happily opening their doors for last-minute shopping include:

• 7-Eleven - Open 24 hours through Christmas
• CVS - Many stores open 24 hours through Christmas Day
• K-Mart - Open 24 hours through 10:00 p.m. Christmas Eve
• KTA Super Stores - Some stores open Christmas Day
• Macy's - Some stores open 24 hours through 6:00 p.m. Christmas Eve
• Safeway - Some stores open Christmas Day
• Starbucks - Some stores open Christmas Day
• Target - Open until 7:00 p.m. Christmas Eve
• Toys 'R Us - Many stores open from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Christmas Eve
• Walgreens - Many stores open 24 hours through Christmas Day
• Wal-Mart - Open until 8:00 p.m. Christmas Eve

The best of the last last-minute gift shopping options, though, may be e-gift cards and e-gift certificates, which can be purchased on the websites of more than 40 retailers through Christmas Day.

See a complete list of retail websites that offer e-gift cards and e-gift certificates

The electronic versions of gift cards and gift certificates work just like their physical counterparts, without the plastic. When you purchase e-gift cards or e-gift certificates, they will either be delivered directly to the recipient via e-mail, or you may be given the option to print them out from your own computer. This printed version can be wrapped in a gift box or tucked into a greeting card. If packaged well enough, this tech-savvy nifty gift can look like it was actually a planned and thoughtful purchase.

One caution about e-gift cards and e-gift certificates is to make sure you read the terms. Some of them can only be redeemed online, and not in brick-and-mortar stores. That might not be the best option for great Aunt Sophie who thinks computers are demonic devices of moral destruction. Another caution is to check for cutoff times. Some websites do have deadlines for making purchases on Christmas Day. You'll want to know what their scheduled "last minute" is so that you can schedule your own.

Speaking of gift cards, many companies are offering bonus incentives to gift card purchasers this holiday season. So if you are generous enough to give the gift of food and beverage from the Melting Pot, California Pizza Kitchen, the Cheesecake Factory, Denny's or T.G.I. Friday's, for example, you'll get to eat, drink and be merry at those same restaurants yourself with the bonus gift cards the chains will give you for free. Since many of these restaurants will be open on Christmas Day, the ultimate procrastinators can purchase their gift cards and gift them on the same day. Just make sure to leave enough time for the glue to dry on the envelope before the giving occurs. Otherwise, you're busted.

Retailers know that there are going to be a record-breaking number of last-minute purchases made this year, and they are eager and willing to do whatever it takes to be the recipient of as many of those last-minute dollars as possible. At least that's the prevailing attitude this year. The underlying hope, however, is that by this time next year, Americans will be back to their old habits of shopping early and shopping often.

Somewhere around 50 million people who might be boosting U.S. retail industry holiday sales today are spending Super Saturday at home instead, cursing the timing of a shopping-unfriendly winter storm. While online shopping seems like the only option for desperate consumers running out of time, the cost of expedited shipping that will ensure holiday delivery is not a good option for cost-conscious shoppers.

The best and most economical shopping option for homebound holiday shoppers this weekend are online e-tailers with in-store pickup options.

A growing number of large U.S. retailers have integrated their online shopping with their traditional brick-and-mortar stores to give virtual shoppers the option to pick up their purchases instead of having them shipped. The retailers with this ship-to-store option in place are the ones best positioned to capitalize on Super Saturday's unfortunate weather conditions.

See a complete list of online retail websites with ship-to-store, click-to-brick and in-store pickup options

Holiday shopping sales figures on Super Saturday were predicted to... read more...

In the busiest part of a transaction-challenged retail year, retailers would be happy to just focus on keeping their cash registers as busy as possible. But in the final weeks of a recession year, there are other pesky matters on the retail "To Do" list that are adding to the busy-ness of the U.S. retail industry. Things like last-minute openings and closings, Hail Mary Chapter 11 filings, liquidation sales, lease renegotiations, and those annoying holiday crime reports are stealing focus and keeping some retailers extra busy this year.

Dollar General (DG) is one of the busiest of the busy retailers. The public-turned-private chain went public again in November and 22 million shares changed hands at a price slightly higher than expected. Shortly after that, the chain announced that its year-to-date profits were up 296% over last year. Dollar General's merchandisers expect to grow those profits even more with the chain-specific designs they have been creating for their home and apparel product lines which will be mixed in with the private label products already stocked on the store's shelves.

The discount chain is aggressively courting holiday business by offering a selection of 400 toys, many priced at $5 or lower, in fearless response to Wal-Mart's 100 toys for $10 campaign. (For the record, Wal-Mart has not reported a triple-digit profit increase so far in 2009.) And Dollar General is also going toe-to-toe with convenience stores in Tennessee and Georgia by adding lottery tickets to its merchandising mix in those two states.

Running the 500 stores that Dollar General added to the 2009 Store Openings list has also kept its employees busy this year. And the 50 Dollar General stores that the chain will be adding every month to the Store Openings list in 2010 isn't going to leave much time for slacking off next year either.

One thing that is keeping Dollar General particularly busy lately is the number of police officers who have been frequenting its stores. At least 21 crimes were committed in Dollar General stores in the past six weeks, more than half of which were armed robberies. While the chain takes pride in its "small, convenient neighborhood stores," located in areas that are underserved by other retailers, often there's a good reason why other retailers don't want to set up shop across the street.

Apparently Dollar General stores are quickly taking their place alongside convenience stores as desirable targets for thieves, armed robbers, flim-flam artists, and even arsonists. Hopefully Dollar General is not viewing all of this as just a cost of doing business. Having worked with the convenience store industry, I have seen firsthand how the perceived threat of crime can make every aspect of running a retail business extremely difficult. If just one of these crimes turns bloody, it's going to take more than low-priced toys, advancement opportunities, and a good PR firm to clean up the mess.

One thing Dollar General has not been busy doing is adding any female talent to its board of directors. According to a new report on female executive leadership, Dollar General has the dubious distinction of being the only Fortune 500 retail chain without a female board member, even though it would be safe to assume that the majority of both its customers and employees are female. Dollar General just added two new members to its board this fall, both of them male. Perhaps the lack of female presence in the boardroom is linked somehow to the EEOC lawsuit filed against the chain this fall for sexual harassment. It could be just a coincidence, I suppose.

Another busy retail chain is the chain that opened more than 150 stores within a matter of a few days last week. That was not as impossible as it sounds, because in this case, the stores were InkStop locations which had been abruptly abandoned back on October 1st when doors were locked and employees were locked out without advance notice. The bankruptcy court handling this case ordered the stores to be reopened last week and all inventory, equipment, and fixtures to be sold "regardless of cost or loss." It's not clear whether any of the proceeds of the chain's liquidation will get distributed to the 500 or so employees that are owed an estimated $1 million for unpaid wages and benefits. The small consolation is that at least some of the wronged InkStop employees will have temporary holiday employment working at the liquidation sales. Reportedly, the liquidation companies actually do pass out regular paychecks.

Unfortunately, the bankruptcy courts have been busy lately too, and are still processing new retail filings. Just last week The Walking Company (WALK.PK) added its chain to the 2009 Retail Chapter 11 list, a list which has continued to grow all throughout the year. Too bad the InkStop stores weren't re-opened when The Walking Company was printing the going-out-of-business signs for the 90 namesake stores that it wants to liquidate immediately. The liquidation signage reportedly was ready to post even before the Chapter 11 papers were filed. If all goes as planned, 120 Walking Company stores will emerge from bankruptcy, but the company's last eight Big Dog stores will be put to sleep.

Two other retail chains will be keeping themselves busy with head-to-head competition for the rest of 2009 and for all of 2010. Qdoba (JACK) and Chipotle (CMG) restaurant chains have both been expanding throughout this recessionary year, sometimes opening stores in the same cities at the same time. For example, a new Qdoba and a new Chipotle were both opened within two days of each other in Modesto, CA. Only four miles separates the two fast-food Mexican restaurants, so basically they are both marketing to the same people in the same neighborhood.

This ojo-por-ojo competition happens a lot between Qdoba and Chipotle. Recently Qdoba added a Kids Meal menu starting at $3.39. That was in response to Chipotle's new Kids Menu with prices starting at $2.95. Qdoba offered a free kids' meal with purchase of a regular entrée as an introductory deal. Chipotle offers a free kids' meal with purchase of a regular entrée one day every week.

Qdoba sponsors the Boston Red Sox. Chipotle sponsors Garmin-Slipstream Pro Cycling. Qdoba was ranked #94 on the Entrepreneur Franchise 500 list. Chipotle got five top-five mentions on the 2009 Zagat Fast Food survey. Qdoba has a customer loyalty program. Chipotle has a 2010 global store expansion planned in London. Qdoba has online ordering. Chipotle has an iPhone app. Qdoba has burrito trivia on its website. Chipotle has pencil tapping on its website. (Both are worth checking out.)

Chipotle is committed to "Food With Integrity," which is "unprocessed, seasonal, family-farmed, sustainable, naturally raised, hormone free, and organic." Qdoba is "passionate" about serving "fresh, healthful and minimally processed ingredients whenever possible." The two chains were pretty even in the competition up to this point. From a consumer point of view, though, there's a huge difference between being "committed to food with integrity," and being "passionate whenever possible."

With its "food integrity" strategy alone, Chipotle ensures that it will win the race in the long term because eventually, all the other fast food chains are going to kill off their customers with poisoned factory farm food supplies. Therein lies the fatal flaw in the long-term business plans of almost all of America's fast food chains.

Considering the nasty business that was keeping the U.S. retail industry busy last year - massive markdowns, desperation layoffs, and war room marathons - this year's busy-ness doesn't seem so bad. Perhaps this time next year retail chains will just be busy taking care of business. Christmas wishes sometimes come true.

The consensus from the Washington Post, Business Week, the Associated Press and about 2,941 other media outlets was that November sales in the U.S. retail industry were "disappointing." According to the media headlines, the only things more disappointing than November's sales comps were the Ultimate Fighter finale, the release of James Cameron's Avatar video game, and, of course, Tiger Woods' abdication of his throne in Squeaky Cleandom.

When looking at a complete November same store sales list, there seems to be plenty to be disappointed about. Twenty-three major U.S. retail chains saw their same store sales decline from November, 2008. Last November was not the start of a jolly holiday shopping season by any standard, so it was hoped, assumed, and expected that it would not be difficult for U.S. retailers to outperform themselves and show some positive year-over-year progress.

The progress, though, wasn't obvious, so the headlines declared the retail industry to be a disappointment. Upon closer examination, there are some disappointing aspects of the retail sector in November, but really not enough to justify the blanket characterization of disappointment found in the media headlines. Who really was all that disappointed with November's same store sales results?

BJ's and Buckle are not disappointed because when you look at a comparison of November same store sales figures, these two chains are the only two major U.S. retailers that have had positive same store sales growth for the past four Novembers in a row. BJ's and Buckle havn't had much reason to be disappointed all year, but they have had a reason to be confused. They still can't figure out what this recession fuss is all about.

Aeropostale, Ross, TJX and Walgreen shouldn't be too disappointed because their November 2009 same store sales gains exceeded the losses they suffered in the cataclysmic November of 2008. That's quite an accomplishment considering how very few things about the U.S. retail industry have rebounded completely from last year's meltdown.

The nine other chains that don't have a minus sign in front of their November same store sales numbers can't be all that disappointed, even if they had hoped and expected more from themselves. Even flat results were positive because as we all know too well, things could have been, and certainly have been, a lot worse.

Macy's, American Eagle, Neiman Marcus, Bon-Ton, Duckwall-ALCO, JC Penney, Stein Mart, Target, Wet Seal, and Zumiez are probably not thrilled to have negative same store sales percentages, but at least the numbers behind their minus signs are smaller than they were last November. That represents positive movement for these ten chains, and it's difficult to be disappointed about anything moving in the direction of stabilization.

So if these 25 major U.S. retail chains aren't disappointed in their November 2009 same store sales results, where is all the disappointment that the headlines are screaming about?

Well, it's never good to be the one at the bottom of the monthly same store sales list, especially when you're a chain that derives much of your brand identity from looking down your noses at everyone else. So, of course, Saks (SKS) is disappointed that the affluent elite didn't cash in more of their recent stock market gains and exchange it for material evidence of their fame and fortune in November. Saks is especially disappointed that luxury rival Neiman Marcus didn't join them in their double-digit disgrace. Apparently the Limited Edition Jaguar in the 2009 Neiman Marcus Christmas catalogue is moving better than the $2,350 Christian Loubitin No 1 Pure Perfume for men at Saks. There's just no accounting for bad taste.

The Gap (GPS) should be disappointed because for the fifth year in a row it wasn't able to return a positive November same store sales figure with its namesake chain, even with an aggressive amount of advertising this year. Those dancy-rapping cheer-chanting kids in the current Gap TV ads are certainly attention-getting enough. (And really - "how cute are those boots?") Apparently, though, even Black Friday week commercials every 15 minutes didn't help the chain sell enough of the stuff that their junior pitch squad was doing back flips about to keep it from sliding back to 2003 sales levels. This actually is probably more surprising than disappointing to the Gap execs.

If same store sales is a true reflection of the number of shoppers and the prices they're paying year-over-year, then the Gap's five-year November struggle may be revealing the gap between what the chain's buyers are buying and what the consuming public thinks are the right products at the right prices. The thing that the Gap is probably most clearly illustrating for the retail industry is that you can't really make up for merchandising misses with marketing. Lucky for the Gap, though, (and particularly lucky for the Gap advertising agency) they can usually find a plausible way to blame the weather or the calendar or the economy for just about any of their November retailing missteps. If it wasn't for (fill in the blank with a convenient excuse), those Gap Kids $98 Stella McCartney "comfy sweaters" would be flying out the door.

Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) is another retail chain that should be disappointed with its November same store sales because on top of the 28% decline they saw in November 2008, they underperformed themselves by another 17% this November. Seventeen must be the chain's lucky number because November 2009 marks the 17th month in a row that Abercrombie & Fitch has returned double-digit negative same store sales figures. And if that's not disappointing enough, Abercrombie should be disappointed that its third quarter profits fell 39%. It's doubtful, though, that Abercrombie will ever actually admit that it is disappointed with anything related to its performance. Honest self-evaluation doesn't really seem to be one of Mike Jeffries' leadership values.

Dillard's (DDS) is another chain that can be included in the disappointed retailers club because its November sales have been on a downward slide for the entire decade. The $438 million that Dillard's cash registers rang up in November, 2009 was only slightly more than what was handed to them by their customers in November, 1993. It's got to be disappointing to have regressed 16 years in your business results.

If the retail industry was a game of Chutes and Ladders (and really, if you think about it, it is), and Dillard's is one of the players on the game board, then its brightly colored plastic game piece landed on that dreaded space #87 back in 2001. And since then, the chain has been on a decade-long ride down the biggest chute on the game board.

It's not clear whether Dillard's has actually reached the bottom of the chute yet, or if it will continue to slide until it falls off the board completely. There are some experts who have predicted "game over" for Dillard's already. Obviously, though, Wall Street is betting that the chain has bounced off the bottom of the chute and is ready to roll the dice and proceed with play since Dillard's "disappointing" November sales numbers actually created a rise in its stock prices.

In fact, nearly half of the retailers with same stores sales declines in November saw an immediate lift to their stock prices after reporting their negative results. How does that compute?

The answer to that, of course, is profit - either real in the present or imaginary in the future. Even if the strength of the chain has decreased, which is what same store sales is supposed to be showing us, if the chain still manages to find a way to turn a profit, or even if it looks like the chain has the promise of finding a way to turn a profit in the near future, Wall Street rewards it. This is exactly what happened this month with Dillard's. Even though its same store sales revealed a dismally digressed state of affairs, its profit trumped everything and it received analyst praise and a subsequent lift in stock prices.

After Wall Street rewarded so many of this month's decliners, it leaves me wondering why we go through this same store sales exercise every month if the financial community is going to ignore the results anyway. Then again, my overall opinion that same store sales is a misused and grossly misinterpreted measurement leaves me bewildered about the same store sales game just about every month.

So, from the perspective of proving that the time, effort, and energy devoted to the same store sales game every month is time, effort, and energy misspent, November didn't disappoint.