Commerce Retail Sales Advance Report: YOY Jumps 5.9%

Yesterday, I promised to post the report from Commerce for the advance retail sales numbers. You can access it here. Here is the summary:

• Change from Previous Month (November 2009 to December 2009): Decrease of 0.2%
• Change from Previous Year (December 2008 versus December 2009): Increase of 5.9%

However, the big disappointment was that for the 12 months total sales for 2009 were down 6.2 percent (±0.2%) from 2008. That is a huge change from last year, probably reflecting the continued softness in the overall economy. Hopefully 2010 rings better.

Technorati Tags: holiday sales,retail,vivek sehgal

Well, the NRF was Not Right After All

On November 13, I wrote: If NRF is Right, Not Much Holiday Cheer. In the article, I disagreed with NRF’s projections of lower holiday sales, since all other indicators just did not point to a weak holiday season. Well, the NRF was not right after all!

Most numbers now show that the sales for the holiday season for 2009 did rise.

Data from MasterCard Advisors’ SpendingPulse showed that the increase was as much as 3.6% – see the news article from Bloomberg here.

ShopperTrak now reports that retail sales increased 1.7 Percent for 2009 holiday season even as the foot-traffic declined. Could the decline in foot traffic be a result of increased online retail?

Retail Indicators Branch of the Census Bureau will release their advance retail trade numbers for December 2009 tomorrow. Most likely those numbers will reinforce what we have been hearing so far. So don’t hold your breath, but do come back to check the release tomorrow.

Technorati Tags: holiday sales,retail,vivek sehgal