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American consumers spent $ 850 billion between November 1 and December 24, according to MasterCard’s SpendingPulse program, which tracks sales both online and in US stores. The current result was 5.1% higher than last year's figure for the same period, and this is the best dynamics of the retailers' revenues over the past six years, the Wall Street Journal said.
Experts explain such a successful pre-Christmas season for retailers with favorable economic situation in the country for ordinary consumers: “While Wall Street is running around, consumers are satisfied with their work and enjoy the highest wage growth over the past decade,” Craig Johnson of Customer Growth Partners explained to WSJ. “And the recent decline in gasoline prices has contributed to the growth of last-minute purchases.”
Online purchases are still the main factor affecting the growth in sales.
According to MasterCard, from November 1 to December 24, they grew by 19.1% compared with last year. Americans were especially active on the Internet from November 21-23, which was Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday. Online sales these days increased by 26.4%, according to Adobe Analytics. But sales in physical stores for the entire pre-Christmas period decreased by 1.3%, according to the data of Spending Pulse. And this may prevent American retailers from setting a sales record for the entire sales season (November 1 — December 31).
At the beginning of November, the eMarketer research agency published a forecast that, for the first time in history, total sales online and offline could exceed $ 1 trillion. But at the same time, the eMarketer forecast was based not only on a sharp increase in online sales, but also on steady sales growth in regular stores, which has not yet been observed.
source: wsj.com
Experts explain such a successful pre-Christmas season for retailers with favorable economic situation in the country for ordinary consumers: “While Wall Street is running around, consumers are satisfied with their work and enjoy the highest wage growth over the past decade,” Craig Johnson of Customer Growth Partners explained to WSJ. “And the recent decline in gasoline prices has contributed to the growth of last-minute purchases.”
Online purchases are still the main factor affecting the growth in sales.
According to MasterCard, from November 1 to December 24, they grew by 19.1% compared with last year. Americans were especially active on the Internet from November 21-23, which was Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday. Online sales these days increased by 26.4%, according to Adobe Analytics. But sales in physical stores for the entire pre-Christmas period decreased by 1.3%, according to the data of Spending Pulse. And this may prevent American retailers from setting a sales record for the entire sales season (November 1 — December 31).
At the beginning of November, the eMarketer research agency published a forecast that, for the first time in history, total sales online and offline could exceed $ 1 trillion. But at the same time, the eMarketer forecast was based not only on a sharp increase in online sales, but also on steady sales growth in regular stores, which has not yet been observed.
source: wsj.com
