Retail Sales Barely Rise Over The Holidays

During the holidays, people tend to flock to retail stores more than at any other time during the year. Johnny needs this toy, Sarah needs this dress, and so on. However, that didn’t appear to be the case during December.

Retail sales increased just 0.1 percent which barely even registers on the scale. This was the slowest increase in 7 months and completely goes against the general thought that shopping during the holidays tends to be at it’s absolute highest, record breaking even.

It seems though that it wasn’t necessarily people buying less, just that more people bought everything they needed ahead of time in November. For a lot of us, myself included, I’m lucky to buy pretty much anything ahead of time. It’s usually a couple weeks before.

As far as shopping at electronics and appliance stores, that dropped 3.9 percent which is likely due to the fact that you can easily be the latest gadget, PC, laptop, and more, online. Why spend a couple hours going out when you can stay at home and order there? Sure, you can’t personally test out the product then, but with all the video reviews and written reviews of products, you can be much more confident with your purchase.

Food and beverage sales dropped 0.2 percent and sales at gas stations dropped 1.6 percent which could be from not as many people out shopping and the likes of more fuel efficient cars out on the road.

The only real increase for retail in December was auto sales and part purchases which increased by 1.5 percent.