Holiday Hum: General Retail Sales Up 3.8%

Holiday sales at independent bookstores were solid, with sales brisk through Christmas Eve and the beginning of Hanukkah, according to early comments and posts from booksellers. (We'll have a full report on holiday sales in bookstores in tomorrow's issue.)

General holiday sales rose 3.8% this season, between November 1 and December 25, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse. Online sales rose 6.7% while in-store sales were up 2.9%. The figures do not include auto sales.

This year's general holiday season was marked by heavy and early discounting that seemed to lure hesitant shoppers. Still, the Wall Street Journal called it "a holiday season of the haves and the have nots... the gains were increasingly driven by higher-income households, those making more than $100,000 a year. Lower-income Americans were squeezed by higher prices for groceries, child care and other monthly expenses."

Steve Sadove, senior adviser for Mastercard and former CEO of Saks, said, "This holiday season, we saw consumers motivated by deals and retailers respond with promotions to meet the demand."

The New York Times quoted Michelle Meyer, chief economist at the Mastercard Economics Institute, as saying, "The holiday season is coming in pretty healthy because that's the period of time that people have to concentrate their spending. They know that promotions are heavy. They want to gift for others and for themselves."

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