NEW YORK (AP) – Two of the biggest U.S. retailers are rolling out plans to lure shoppers into stores during the holiday season. Plans from Wal-Mart and Target include discounts, stepped-up marketing and spiffed up stores. Wal-Mart says it’ll be offering price cuts, or what it refers to as “rollbacks,” starting Nov. 1, on thousands of holiday products that will last at least 90 days. Target isn’t providing specifics on its discounting, but in late September it said it would match its online prices with more than two dozen online competitors. The moves illustrate how important the holiday shopping season is to retailers. It’s a roughly two-month period that accounts on average for 20 percent of the retail industry’s annual sales. Wal-Mart and Target, in particular, have a lot to prove this holiday season. Both are heading into the holiday shopping season with turnaround plans they launched after being battered by the economy and their own mistakes.
