Holiday shopping forecasts have improved at both bricks and mortar and e-commerce operations. Comscore forecast online spending will rise 15% for the period from November 1 through the end of the year.
Now. the National Retail Federation has moved its forecasts up in a sign that traditional store sales are being helped by a healthy consumer and that internet sales are not robbing revenue, at least not too much.
Reuters reports that
The National Retail Federation said it now expects holiday sales to rise 3.8 percent to a record $469.1 billion. That is up from the group’s October forecast, which called for growth of 2.8 percent.
The new forecast is still lower than the 5.2 percent growth seen last year, but is above the 10-year average increase of 2.6 percent.
The data is also a reasonable forecast about the rise of GDP in the fourth quarter, which now may be as high as 3%. It is also a good omen for early 2012 growth, particularly if current tax cuts remain in place
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