For online retailers and furniture retailers, the 2015 holiday shopping season was a big winner. E-commerce sales rose 20% year over year and total sales rose 7.9%, compared with the Black Friday to Christmas Eve period in 2014.
Not all retailers shared in the surge, according to MasterCard Inc.’s (NYSE: MA) SpendingPulse survey. Electronics and men’s apparel were laggards. A slow start to cold weather hit apparel sales in the period before Black Friday, contributing to pent-up demand, especially for women’s apparel. MasterCard said that sales of women’s apparel rose by double-digits in the holiday shopping period.
Not including car and gasoline sales, retail sales across all credit card and payment types rose 4.6%. Including gasoline, growth totaled just 2.7%, an indication that consumers were in fact spending the money that they saved on gasoline for other things.
A MasterCard executive said:
After a slow start, I’m very happy to see that the holiday season was hot for retailers. We saw some very promising trends. The double-digit growth in furniture sales, for instance, shows that consumers are willing and able to splurge on big ticket items. eCommerce’s rise is a solid indication of an empowered and savvy shopper. We’ll be watching to see if this behavior continues into 2016.
According to MasterCard’s latest Omnishopper Report, some 80% of consumers use their computers, mobile devices, and in-store technology to help them make purchasing decisions. A similar total say they are better shoppers than they were just a few years ago, and 70% believe they are getting more value for their money than they did five years ago. The good news for brick-and-mortar retailers is that today’s shoppers still like to hit the shops in person.
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