Holiday sales rose at the fastest pace in 17 years, even as shoppers grappled with higher prices, product shortages and a raging new COVID-19 variant in the last few weeks of the season, according to one spending measure.
Holiday sales were up 10.7% compared with the pre-pandemic 2019 holiday period.
A broader picture will be revealed next month when the National Retail Federation, the nation’s largest retail trade group, comes out with its combined two-month results in mid-January. The results will be based on an analysis of the November and December sales figures from the Commerce Department. Analysts will also be dissecting the fourth-quarter financial results from different retailers that are slated to be released in February.
The group expects that online and other non-store sales, which are included in the total, will increase between 11% and 15%. The numbers exclude automobile dealers, gasoline stations and restaurants. Holiday sales have averaged gains of 4.4% over the past five years, according to the group. Retail sales have continued to rise in an economic environment that has hamstrung some retailers. Many have had to sharply increase pay to find and keep workers, increasing their cost of doing business. They also scrambled to fill shelves with major U.S. ports still backed up.
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