(AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)NEW YORK – The pandemic is turning this into a holiday shopping season like no other.
And with more people shopping online, stores are doing double duty as shipping centers to try to get gifts to doorsteps as fast as possible.
Meanwhile, Best Buy says that 340 of its stores are being specially designated to handle a higher volume of online orders, though all its stores ship e-commerce packages.
Its goal: to have the 340 stores ship more than 70% of its ship-from-store units during the holiday quarter.
Typically, 25% of holiday shopping is based on impulse, according to Marshal Cohen, chief industry advisor at NPD Group, a market research firm.