The second best shopping day of the holiday season didn't come until after the festivities ended. Dec. 26, 2009 wasn't good enough to top Black Friday, but data from ShopperTrak shows that it did shoot past the last Saturday before Christmas, which is usually among the top days of the holiday season. This year, that Saturday wasn't able to realize its potential because of a snowstorm that smacked the East Coast.

Store traffic fell 6.6% from 2008 for the day after Christmas, but sales still reached $7.9 billion. Analysts expected the the first post-holiday shopping day to assume more importance, largely because of the storm a week earlier

Here, in Cincinnati, we have about an inch of snow on the ground this morning. However, the East Coast is getting hammered and officials have advised residents to stay inside. With 20 inches of snow falling from the sky and piling up, not only are residents of the East Coast feeling the pinch, but it is possible retailers do as well. If denizens of the coast pay attention to the warnings, it could put a major crimp in last-minute Christmas shopping.

Retailer Target (TGT) has announced that it will open an hour earlier and remain open until midnight in Virginia, Maryland, D.C., New Jersey, Delaware, and Connecticut (along with some stores in Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts) beginning today through Wednesday. The retailer announced this plan in order to give its patrons "more opportunity to make all their holiday purchases."

It wouldn't reveal the number, but Amazon (AMZN) did announce that it realized record sales for its Kindle e-reader this month. And, there's still the rest of the month to go, including the run-up to Christmas. Just as the battle for e-reader market share began to flare up, it already seems to be over.

This year, Sony (SNE) released a new e-reader, and Barnes & Noble (BKS) entered the market with its Nook device. Both posted early successes, which quickly became problems. The two companies sold out of inventory and won't be able to ship new orders until the new year.

All things considered, the holiday shopping season is off to a decent start. Here's why:

Retail sales on Black Friday rose 0.5% to $10.66 billion, according to preliminary figures released by ShopperTrak, a research firm that tracks more than 50,000 outlets, the Associated Press reported.

In normal times, a 0.5% sales rise would be horrible, but in a U.S. economy weighed down by a 10.2% unemployment rate, 7.6 million lay-offs, and gasoline prices trending toward $3 per gallon, any sales increase is a moral victory.

No, don't expect to see windmills and solar panels -- consumers are leaning toward a different kind of green this holiday season: cash. Rather than hit their credit cards, shoppers will only be spending money they have (and can see and touch). Seventy-one percent of consumers are looking to cash and debit cards as their primary form of payment for holiday shopping this year, which the National Retail Foundation pegs as the highest level since 2005.

This could be a problem for the retailers.

Sure, you'd think that the merchant fees on credit cards make cash more attractive to the sellers. But, Ellen Davis, a spokesperson for the NRF, says that most retailers have found they can talk credit card buyers into up-sells more easily. That leads to a bigger basket size and more revenue. Done successfully, it should comfortably absorb the impact of merchant fees. James Roberts, a marketing professor at Baylor University, adds that using plastic makes consumers more likely to buy at all, let alone more.

Black Friday, as the day after Thanksgiving has come to be known, is the day when most retailers get themselves back into the black. It is also a bargain-hunter's delight. In the age of Internet, several websites emerged dedicated to helping shoppers decide in front of which store to pitch their tents. One of those sites, GottADeal.com, has reportedly landed Target's (TGT) Black Friday ad. Target, it appears, is taking a rather aggressive approach to the upcoming Holiday shopping season.

According to the website, the retailer will offer a 32-inch Westinghouse LCD HDTV for $246, which GottADeal.com's founder Brad Olson calls the "lowest price that we've ever seen for that model." The ad also touts $3 toasters and coffeemakers, and 50% discount on kids' clothes and toys.

Wal-Mart (WMT) won't close Thanksgiving weekend -- not at all. The world's largest retailer is going to keep its stores open 24 hours in an attempt to manage demand for entry during the busiest shopping days of the year. The company has announced it will also implement other crowd-control measures. The festivities start at 5 AM on November 27, 2009. Of course, this doesn't involve any change fro the Wal-Mart Supercenters which already remain open 24 hours a day, but it does address the 800 stores that aren't.

The 24-hour access alone won't do much to alleviate the pressure from thrill-seekers and the bargain-crazed who will want to push through immediately. To help with this problem, Wal-Mart is allowing people to gather in different parts of the store when waiting for the deals to kick off. According to Wal-Mart spokesman David Tovar, "If you've got a 200,000-square-foot store, people will be dispersed throughout the store instead of lined up outside the store." Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

As the old infomercial guys love to say ... "But wait, there's more!"

If Amazon (AMZN) was comfortable with its spot atop the e-reader market, it just got a wakeup call from Barnes & Noble (BKS). The brick-and-mortar book retailer's e-reader, the Nook, which hasn't even hit stores yet, is in pre-order nirvana right now. The first run for the Nook occurred at the end of October (the product was introduced on October 20). These buyers were told the reader would ship on November 30. High demand resulted in backorders, so the next wave of pre-orders was scheduled to ship on December 7. Now, a third group will have to wait until December 11.

This product is on fire, and it still isn't even on shelves yet.

Mary Ellen Keating, a spokeswoman for Barnes & Noble wouldn't reveal how many of these devices have been pre-ordered, but she did say, "Demand for the product in our stores and online has surpassed our expectations." She also noted, "We are working hard to meet demand for the holidays."

This morning, Polo Ralph Lauren (NYSE: RL) reported that its second-quarter earnings checked in at $178 million. This profit comes out to $1.75 per diluted share compared to $1.58 per diluted share for the same quarter last year. For the first six months of fiscal 2010, RL saw net income drop a percentage point, to $254 million. Per-share income totaled $2.51 per share, which was equal to those from a year ago.

RL Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Ralph Lauren, noted that the results "confirm the resilience and vitality of our strategy and demonstrate the superb execution of our management team." The company noted that results have exceeded its expectations for the first half and upped its sales projections for the remainder of the year.

For retailers, the crucial season is on its way. Blow the Christmas rush, and next year starts off on a miserable foot. Success, of course, also delivers a healthy dose of momentum -- and a little bit of wiggle room, important in what will continue to be a tough economy through at least the first half of next year. For booksellers, now contending with a new variable in the form of digital readers, e-readers will play a major role in defining the winners and losers. So far, it looks like Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) is off to a great start, and it will take some genuine innovation for the competition to chip away at its market share.

Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS), once the leading names in literary retail, is expected to release its own e-reader this week. It will look a bit like Amazon's Kindle, according to Reuters, but with a touch screen intended to make the reader's experience easier. The price hasn't been disclosed yet, but rumor has it that it'll be higher than the Kindle's $259. BKS is staying mum on its plans in this space. There are others in the space, as well, including IREX Technologies, which is a spinoff of Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG), Asutek (tk: tk) and a project called FirstPaper that has Hearst behind it.

It's going to get worse before it gets better, according to Stone & McCarthy Research. Early 2010 has "the more troublesome outlook," as the economy will have to walk on its own, the research firm says. This year, it's had a pair of crutches: tax credits for first-time home buyers and the cash-for-clunkers program. So, if the stimulus hasn't taken hold by the end of the year, the first quarter could be a bruiser.

The firm adds that "continued growth in aggregate demand" is needed, bringing the discussion back to consumer spending . . . which is where it will always land. We're likely to see the 3.2% growth rate from July through September drop to 2.4% at the end of the year because the crutches will have been gone. And, let's not forget that unemployment is expected to break the 10% level next year.

September same-store sales are rolling in this Thursday morning, and the news for the teen/tween retailers may hold some hope. Leading off the clothing genre is American Eagle Outfitters (NYSE: AEO), which posted perhaps the best news in the group. Of course, by best news I mean that AEO's sales didn't drop as much as people predicted.

The retailer had flat same-store sales in September, at the top end of its forecast range for a drop of 4.1% to flat sales. Thing is, these results will probably spur a bit of a rally for the stock, mainly because they weren't as bad as they could have been.

On Tuesday, discount retailer Target (NYSE: TGT) announced that it is going to do its best to stimulate the job market. The company announced that it will open 26 new stores, which will lead to 5,000 new jobs. These stores are set to open on October 11, and a majority of the stores will be of the general merchandise variety, with five of them full-grocery SuperTarget stores.

Target is making this move as the company is facing a tough market. A week ago, UBS cut the stock from "neutral" to "buy," citing a "tarnished image" for the retailer. Target saw quarterly profit fall for an eighth straight quarter after reporting a second-quarter drop. In addition, Target saw same-store sales fall 6.2%.

Bright and early on Wednesday morning, UBS issued a downgrade on discount retailer Target (NYSE: TGT). The brokerage cut TGT to Neutral from Buy, but kept its price target of $52. UBS attributed the downgrade to valuation and concerns surrounding a change in consumer spending and the impact of said spending on the company's recovery. This downgrade comes after the retailer hired a research firm to look into its reputation -- I guess they should have checked on their reputation with brokerages.

Shares of the retailer are lower this morning thanks to the news, but there is reason to believe the retailer could enjoy a prosperous holiday shopping season. Hear me out, Target offers quality products at a reasonable price, making the retailer a good spot to find great deals. What's more, Target is constantly offering sales and coupons, making the deals even sweeter. These discounts are exactly what people will look for when trying to fill out Santa's list.

As we continue to question whether or not America is emerging from the recession, one indicator that a lot of people are paying attention to is consumer confidence. Unfortunately, consumer confidence fell unexpectedly this month, as more and more people are worried about their jobs.

According to the New York-based Conference Board, its consumer confidence index dipped to 53.1 in September, down from 54.5 in August.

The dip ends a three month streak, and is being blamed mostly on Americans concerns over job security. The drop raises concerns over any economic rebound, and comes at a bad time for retailers that are gearing up for the upcoming holiday season.