When you think of classic New York City Christmas traditions, the lit Rockefeller Christmas tree or a Rockettes’ kickline might come to mind. But there’s another institution that pre-dates even these nearly century-old customs: the holiday window displays adorning the city’s iconic department stores.

These festive feats of visual merchandising, including everything from family-friendly animatronics to high-fashion mannequins surrounded by elaborate sets, date all the way back to 1874, when Macy’s founder R.H. Macy is said to have debuted the city’s first holiday window display back when its flagship department store sat on 14th Street. Fast forward to 2022, and department stores like Bergdorf Goodman, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Bloomingdale’s continue to celebrate the season with impressive window displays.

To see some of this year’s displays for ourselves, we headed to holiday-window unveilings at two iconic New York City department stores—Macy’s flagship store in Herald Square and Bergdorf Goodman on Fifth Avenue—to talk to the creative minds behind the glass.

The “Give Love. Give Style.” campaign at Macy’s

In 1883, Macy’s introduced its first steam-powered windows featuring mechanical figures, and this year, it’s producing a slew of mechanical holiday exhibits with the theme of “Give Love. Give Style.”

Manny Urquizo, Macy’s director of storewide visual campaigns and windows, led the creation; this is his third year working on Macy’s holiday windows. The full process—from design conception to building the set—takes about eight to nine months, Urquizo told Retail Brew.

There’s “Magic in the Making” at Bergdorf Goodman

This year, Bergdorf’s pulled back the curtain on its seven windows with the theme “Magic in the Making,” featuring designers like Prabal Gurung, Carolina Herrera, and Marc Jacobs. Bergdorf’s was focused on materials, with each window highlighting crafts like woodworking, papier-mache, dressmaking, scrapbooking, metal, and paper sculpture.

Keep reading here.—EC

Maybe you lose your mind every year for Starbucks’s pumpkin spice lattes, but you’re also on a tight budget, so Aunt Gretchen generously bought you a gift card. But what happens when the card balance gets down to $3.50, but a grande hot PSL costs up to $5.95?

• One option in eight states is that you can ask—and businesses are required—to give you the balance back, because they require refunding gift-card balances of $4.99–$9.99, upon consumer request.
• Another two, Rhode Island and Vermont, require a refund option only when balances dwindle to $0.99 or less.

Now Starbucks is facing a lawsuit over card-balance refunds. And it might portend more legal fights to come, suggesting that retailers should get a handle on how to refund low balances where state law requires it.

A suit over $4.94: On the surface, it might seem like a lot of effort over a trivial sum: The suit is on behalf of a Boston man named Richard Spencer, who wants a refund of the $4.94 left on his Starbucks’ card, which is a nickel under the $4.99 threshold in Massachusetts. But the lawsuit, filed in August in the US District Court in Seattle, where Starbucks is based, also seeks to establish class-action status. That means anyone else with a redeemable amount on their Starbucks card also has a claim against the company for, in the words of the suit, “breach of contract and unjust enrichment.”

Redeeming qualities: In a similar lawsuit in May, a New Jersey resident, Daniel Crooks, wanted to cash in the $4.54 left on his Dunkin’ gift card, as his state, with a $4.99 cash-redemption threshold, permits. But, as the suit puts it, there was “no mechanism to refund the value of the card.”

Keep reading here.—AAN

“Like your birthday and the Oscars, Black Friday is an event people are less hyped about every year that passes. Still, the shopping extravaganza can reveal important insights about consumer behavior, especially in this era of soaring inflation. So what did we learn?” writes Morning Brew’s Neal Freyman:

E-commerce spending stayed strong.

Buy now, pay later usage surged.

Phones accounted for a record 48% of all Black Friday online purchases, per Adobe.

Read the whole story here on Morning Brew.

Today’s top retail reads.

Pressure cooker: How supermarkets are going after restaurants with more prepared options, and restaurants are fighting back with lower-priced alternatives. (the Wall Street Journal)

Competitive Advent-age: With themes from Baby Shark to Burt's Bees to fishing tackle, Advent calendars are big business. "The consumer is overwhelmed with an often unmanageable range of choices," said Howard Meitiner, former president and CEO of Sephora. (Reuters)

Gold testament: Goldbacks, US dollar bills that have gold embedded in them, are now accepted in four states. (Marketplace)

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We’re ringing in the holiday season with a special giveaway! So if you’re in the market for some free peppermint mochas, hear us out.

Twenty-five years ago, Starbucks debuted its holiday cups—one of the most beloved signs of the start of the holiday season. Inspired by this legendary retail campaign, we’re giving away five $50 Starbucks gift cards to thank you for making our community of retail pros the best one around.

To put yourself in the running, just click below!

Enter caffeination station ️

At the mall, it’s where band tees are the only tees. In Retail Brew, it’s where we invite readers to weigh in on a trending retail topic.

With the torrent of online holiday shopping underway, retailers are trying to balance how to offer free shipping without cutting too deeply into margins. That’s a balancing act they’ve been trying to strike since at least 2005, when Amazon founder Jeff Bezos introduced Amazon Prime, which for $79 annually (now $139) enabled members to have unlimited free two-day shipping.

But last week, we reported that as consumers become more aware of the environmental impact of fast shipping—not to mention all those harried warehouse workers—retailers are reframing slower shipping as a feature, not a flaw.

• When asked how quickly they expect online orders to arrive, shoppers’ most popular response, at 36%, was three to four days, followed by two days (30%), one day (18%), and the same day (9%), according to a 2021 CI&T survey.
• In a recent survey by commerce experience platform Nosto and Censuswide, more than half (54%) of respondents strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement that they wouldn’t mind slower delivery times if it meant reducing carbon emissions.

You tell us: For non-grocery items that you order online with free shipping, what is the slowest shipping speed that you think is acceptable for most purchases?

Circling back: Last week, we asked you about lab-grown meat, which was in the headlines after the FDA ruled that a “cultivated chicken” product made by Upside Foods was safe to eat. Upside Foods still has to be approved by the US Department of Agriculture, as will lab-grown beef and other meats that also are in development.

So, with lab-grown meat on the horizon, and some of its advocates arguing that far fewer animals are killed and there’s less of an environmental impact to produce it, we asked what you’ll do when it comes out. In response, 52% of you said that you were meat eaters and were going to try lab-grown meat, while 36% of you were meat eaters but didn't plan on trying it. Another 10% don’t normally eat meat, but will try lab-grown meat because there’s less impact on animals and the environment, while only 2% don’t normally eat meat and won’t eat lab-grown meat, either.

Catch up on the Retail Brew stories you may have missed.

• Too Good To Go app offers a surprising way to reduce consumer food spending
• Can Esprit, upon its return to the US, spark a new connection with Gen Z?
• Luxury outdoor brand Canada Goose is betting big on US brick-and-mortar