Think you buy your father the perfect Father’s Day present? Well, odds are you don’t.
    In a new survey, 53 percent of fathers said they have never gotten a good Father’s Day gift. That represents a pretty large disconnect from what children think about the gifts they give. Nearly 67 percent of respondents believed that their fathers were generally pleased with the gifts they received.
    Moms are much easier. Of the 3,632 Americans who responded to the online poll conducted by ShopLocal, a multichannel shopping service company, only 18 percent of mothers did not like the gifts they received for Mother’s Day and nearly 60 percent said they always loved what they received.
    “Most people find that dads are a lot more finicky and less inclined to tell someone what they want, which could explain why more money is spent shopping for Mother’s Day than for Father’s Day,” said ShopLocal’s Eva Yusa in a news release about the survey.
    According to ShopLocal, $11.4 billion is spent on purchases for Mother’s Day while only $8.6 billion is spent on Father’s Day.

Do men love their mothers more than women do?

According to a National Retail Federation survey about Mother’s Day spending, men will spend $172.91 on average for mom compared to the $107.18 on average that women will shell out.

The survey, conducted by market research firm BIGresearch, found that younger people spend more on mom, too. Seems that as dear old mom gets older, the average ticket price of her gift gets lower — shoppers 35 to 44 said they’d spend $147.30 on Mother’s Day, while those ages 55 to 64 said they’d spend $138.14, on average.

Shoppers, who are expected to spend $15.73 billion this year on Mother’s Day, will gravitate to the old standbys of flowers, jewelry, luxury spa treatments and special meals, the survey found.

One curious finding – Some 24 percent of shoppers will shop for Mom at a discount store.

Say it isn’t so.

       You would think giving away $3 million a week might be easy for a company. But for Laysha Ward, who helps make the decision on where retailer Target Corp. sends its charitable contributions, the job includes some delicate choices. 
    Ward, Target’s Vice President of Community Relations, oversees Target’s domestic and international grant making, sponsorships and volunteerism. The company gives away 5 percent of its taxable income to support communities where it does business.

    Right now, Target supports programs ranging from giving grants to school teachers so they can take students on field trips to sponsoring free days at museums across the country.
    Ward said part of her job entails deciding which programs make sense for Target to get involved with.
    “You have to balance the community and business interest,” she said. “We try to do things that make sense for a company to do.”
    She added that you have to ask: “Who are you stake holders?”
    For instance, while a foundation might sponsor a 10-year study to derive in-depth knowledge of its cause, Target is looking for projects where it can get involved immediately and make an impact.
    She also said Target has a delicate line to walk when it comes to advertising its corporate sponsorship of events or items.
    While she said it is important not to turn off recipients by plastering the red Target bulls-eye logo all over a donation, she also said that consumers want to know that the places where they shop are giving back to the community. So she said that at times, it makes sense to incorporate the Target name or logo into a media campaign or on to a donation — but always discreetly.
    She also said that, with the prevalence of the Internet and the ongoing media focus on corporate governance, today’s younger generation of shoppers is much more aware of corporate responsibility and using that information to make decisions about where they want to shop.
    “There is a heightened awareness around the importance of giving,” she said.
    Next up for Ward and Target is national sponsorship of National Volunteer Week, which kicks off April 15. It includes a print campaign encouraging people to call 1-800-VOLUNTEER for suggestions on ways to get involved.

Just about everything that could go right for retailers did in March — warm weather early in the month, the move of a big apparel-buying holiday into the reporting period and a shift in the National Retail Federation’s sales reporting calendar.
And retailers reaped the reward, with almost all sectors posting better-than-expected sales in March at stores open at least a year.
“Warmer temperatures across much of the country following a cooler than normal February leading to pent up spring demand, tax refunds, an earlier Easter holiday, NRF calendar shift, a solid underlying jobs market, and modest March comp expectations all led retailers to a robust positive surprise this morning,” Ken Perkins, president of Retail Metrics, said.
Sixty-nine percent of the retailers the firm tracks beat expectations, Perkins said.
But pitfalls are already on the horizon. April is expected to be a tougher month and not just because all the Easter-related sales moved to March. Kohl’s Corp. notes that April got off to a cold start. That could crimp spending on spring items.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said the tough sales outlook for April would make it hard for the world’s largest retailer to meet its quarterly earnings forecast, even after March sales exceeded expectations.

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The following table lists select U.S. retail companies that have reported March sales at stores open at least a year, a key retail measure also known as same-store sales.

The table includes the range of mean estimates* given by analysts polled by Reuters, the average of those means#, and the actual change in same-store sales reported by the companies^.

All figures expressed in percentage change over the same period last year except number of estimates.

## For U.S. stores
**Reported on Wednesday.
~Pier 1 said it will no longer report same-store sales on a monthly basis.