Thanks to strong online sales and a high demand for women’s apparel and furniture, retail sales this holiday season have risen 7.9% from 2014 totals, according to the MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse. E-Commerce sales further strengthened the overall totals, increasing approximately 20% from last year.
Both furniture and women’s apparel experienced growth in the double digits as well, while men’s apparel declined. Apparel in total drove high single-digit sales growth, even as warm weather raised concerns for many apparel and accessories retailers.
The SpendingPulse report also attributes the increase in spending to lower gas prices, which have enabled customers to spend the extra savings from the pump at the store.
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To conduct the report, MasterCard Advisors monitored U.S. retail sales trends across all payment types, including cash, payment cards and checks, from Black Friday to Christmas Eve.
The MasterCard estimates far surpass initial expectations from the National Retail Federation (NRF), which forecast a 3.7% rise in store and online sales for November and December 2015. The NRF predicted online sales increases of 6% to 8% in that time period — quite mild in comparison to the actual 20% increase.
“After a slow start, I’m very happy to see that the holiday season was hot for retailers,” said Sarah Quinlan, SVP of Market Insights for MasterCard Advisors. “We saw some very promising trends. The double-digit growth in furniture sales, for instance, shows that consumers are willing and able to splurge on big ticket items. E-Commerce’s rise is a solid indication of an empowered and savvy shopper. We’ll be watching to see if this behavior continues into 2016.”
