Anatomy: Retailers are Checking Your Holiday List

Thanks to Americans’ enthusiasm for tweeting, tumbling, pinning, Facebooking, and Instagramming their every move and mood, retailers already know what the must-have gifts will be this holiday season. Year-round, our social-media chatter lets them know what we’re buying, where we’re doing it, even how we feel about it. Here’s how they use the information to get us from Christmas list to checkout.

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Illustration by Todd Detwiler.