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The
holiday shopping season is a crucial period for retailers and
can account for up to 40% of annual sales. But this year,
Thanksgiving, which traditionally starts the U.S. holiday
shopping period, was on Nov. 28, nearly a week later than last
year's Nov. 22, leaving retailers with six fewer days to drive
sales between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
E-commerce sales this year made up 14.6% of total retail and
rose 18.8% from the 2018 period, according to Mastercard’s data
tracking retail sales from Nov. 1 through Christmas Eve.
Overall holiday retail sales, excluding autos, rose 3.4%.
"E-commerce sales hit a record high this year with more people
doing their holiday shopping online," said Steve Sadove, senior
adviser for Mastercard.
"Due to a later than usual Thanksgiving holiday, we saw
retailers offering omnichannel sales earlier in the season,
meeting consumers’ demand for the best deals across all channels
and devices,” Sadove said.
Retailers have invested heavily to provide same-day delivery,
lockers for store pick-up and improve their online presence as
they battle against retail giant Amazon.com Inc <AMZN.O> for
market share.
U.S. President Donald Trump, whose support in the polls has been
buoyed by strong economic data despite his impeachment by the
House of Representatives, heralded the news in a tweet in all
capital letters.
"2019 HOLIDAY RETAIL SALES WERE UP 3.4% FROM LAST YEAR, THE
BIGGEST NUMBER IN U.S. HISTORY. CONGRATULATIONS AMERICA!," Trump
tweeted.
However, Mastercard spokesman William Tsang, citing 2018's 5.1%
growth in total sales, said this year's holiday sales growth was
not the biggest ever.
The White House had no immediate comment on the apparent
discrepancy.
Despite slowing global growth, U.S. consumer spending is
benefiting from wage growth and a strong labor market, retail
consultants and analysts say.
The holiday season was challenging for retailers after Amazon
expanded its free return policy to include products that were
not previously eligible, giving consumers until January to
return even small purchases bought on the website.
The National Retail Federation had forecast U.S. holiday retail
sales over the two months to increase between 3.8% and 4.2%.
That compares with an average annual increase of 3.7% over the
past five years.
The SpendingPulse report tracks spending by combining sales
activity in Mastercard's payments network with estimates of cash
and other payment forms but excludes automobile sales.
(Reporting by Nivedita Balu and Ismail Shakil in Bengaluru and
Andrea Shalal in Washington; Editing by Dan Grebler)
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