Data released by the United States Census Bureau indicated solid retail sales continued as the holiday season officially got underway in November, according to the National Retail Federation.
In commenting on the Census Bureau data, NRF noted overall retail sales in November gained 0.7% seasonally adjusted month over month and 3.8% unadjusted year over year. The November figures compared with increases of 0.5% month over month and 2.9% year over year in October.
November’s core retail sales as defined by NRF — based on the Census Data but excluding automobile dealers, gasoline stations and restaurants — grew 0.4% seasonally adjusted month over month and 3.8% unadjusted year over year.
November’s results align with NRF’s forecast holiday sales would grow 2.5% to 3.5% from 2023. NRF defines the holiday season as November 1 through December 31. However, 45% of holiday shoppers planned to begin before then, and 58% had started by early November, NRF observed.
Core retail sales gained 3.5% year over year for the first 11 months of the year, in line with NRF’s forecast for full-year sales growth between 2.5% and 3.5% from 2023.
The recently released CNBC/NRF Retail Monitor report on sales had November core retail sales down 0.19% month over month from October but up 1.43% year over year. In October, sales increased 0.83% month over month and 4.59% year over year.
NRF Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz said, “November’s results show a strong start to the traditional holiday season. These numbers combined with better-than-expected October sales are evidence that consumer spending continues to fuel the economy. Job and wage gains, modest inflation and a healthy balance sheet have led to solid holiday spending. This growth comes even though the late timing of Thanksgiving delayed the beginning of the busiest shopping portion of the holiday season and pushed Thanksgiving Sunday and Cyber Monday sales into December. The season’s pace of spending is clearly on track to reach our forecast.”
Unlike survey-based numbers collected by the Census Bureau, Retail Monitor uses anonymized credit and debit card purchase data compiled by Affinity Solutions that do not need to be revised monthly or annually.
