Over this past week, retail sales improved due to a spurt of pent-up demand. |
Overall consumption is outpacing income growth, and unless we see improvement in employment, that cannot be sustained. |
Overall, the American consumer has not let retailers down so far this season, |
Overall, the American consumer has not let retailers down so far this season. With December shaping up to finish 6 percent stronger than last year, and November already up nearly 5 percent, we can say that this should be the strongest holiday retail season since 1999. |
Part of the reason was that retailers built sales momentum by offering deep discounts leading up to Black Friday, |
Phase one at least met very modest expectations. It came late and it was uneven. Now, we are in phase two, which is taking on a different character. It could make a modest Christmas into a much better Christmas. |
Phase one, at least, met very modest expectations. It came late and it was uneven. |
Procrastinating consumers and a late Hanukkah (December 25) helped to lift the holiday season's performance. |
Real discretionary purchasing power has picked up this year, and is relatively strong. |
Redemption days are going to be very important this year. |
Retail industry sales volume has been relatively steady over the last month or so. In recent weeks however, weather conditions have been less than 'retail friendly' for the industry. |
Retail overall is still fighting the same war, which is the economy. The bigger hurdle for retailers is June, where the comparisons get even tougher overall at 5.1 percent growth at this time last year. |
Retail sales (have) faced a number of challenges -- one of the hottest month of September on record in the last 111 years ... which hurt fall apparel categories, two powerful hurricanes and high gasoline prices, all of which tempered consumer demand, |
Retail sales (have) faced a number of challenges -- one of the hottest month of September on record in the last 111 years ... which hurt fall apparel categories, two powerful hurricanes and high gasoline prices, all of which tempered consumer demand. |
Retailers have been planning for that lower traffic. The question now is, will the consumer in the last weekend of the season spend a little bit more or not? |