Clothing retail sales in US grew 33.1% during holiday season: NRF

Online and other non-store sales were up 11.3 per cent at $218.9 billion, while furniture and home furnishings stores were up 15 per cent.

“Despite supply chain problems, rising inflation, labour shortages and the omicron variant, retailers delivered a positive holiday experience to pandemic-fatigued consumers and their families. Consumers were backed by strong wages and record savings and began their shopping earlier this year than ever before,” NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay, said in a statement.

Both the amount spent and the growth rate are new highs, topping the previous records of $777.3 billion spent in 2020 and 8.2 per cent growth that year. NRF forecast in October that 2021 holiday sales would increase between 8.5 per cent and 10.5 per cent over 2020 to between $843.4 billion and $859 billion, then said in December that growth could be as much as 11.5 per cent. The 2021 growth compares with an average 4.4 per cent holiday sales growth over the previous five years.

Online spending met NRF’s forecast, which called for growth of between 11 per cent and 15 per cent to between $218.3 billion and $226.2 billion.

NRF’s holiday total includes sales for November 1 through December 31. Retail sales as defined by NRF – which exclude automobile dealers, gasoline stations and restaurants – were down 2.7 per cent seasonally adjusted in December from November but up 13.4 per cent unadjusted year-over-year. That compared with a 0.3 per cent month-over-month decrease in November, which was up 14.8 per cent year-over-year. As of December, sales were up 13 per cent unadjusted year-over-year on a three-month moving average.
  
NRF’s numbers are based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, which said today that overall retail sales in December – including autos, gas and restaurants – were down 1.9 per cent seasonally adjusted from November but up 16.9 per cent year-over-year. That compares with increases of 0.2 per cent month-over-month and 18.2 per cent year-over-year in November. Despite occasional month-over-month declines, sales have grown year-over-year every month since June 2020, according to Census data.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (KD)