Report: Holiday sales up 7.9% this season
Strong online sales and demand for furniture and women’s apparel helped U.S. retail sales grow by a “solid” 7.9 percent this holiday season, according to the MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse report, Reuters reported.
U.S. retail sales, excluding automobiles and gasoline, had grown 5.5 percent in the period between Black Friday and Christmas Eve last year.
Online sales grew 20 percent in the holiday season this year, MasterCard Advisor, which tracks customer spending, said in a report on Monday.
“The double-digit growth in furniture sales … shows that consumers are willing and able to splurge on big-ticket items,” Sarah Quinlan, senior vice president of market insights at MasterCard Advisors, said in the report.
Quinlan said a delay in the onset of cold weather pushed back apparel buying this fall, so there was pent-up demand that played out after Black Friday. Lower gasoline prices also contributed to consumers’ ability to spend more, she said.
The National Retail Federation has separately forecast a 3.7 percent rise in store and online sales in November and December this year, with online sales expected to rise 6 to 8 percent.
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