Holiday retail sales look brighter than before

An influential retail trade group raised its forecast for the United States holiday retail sales on Thursday, citing strong results in November and expectations that consumers still had more shopping to do.Reutersreports that the National Retail Federation said it now expects holiday sales to rise by 3.8 per cent to a record $469.1bn. That is up from the groups October forecast, which called for growth of 2.8 per cent.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 per cent.Consumer spending this holiday season has surpassed expectations, though many shoppers continue to stick to their budgets and buy only what they need, said NRF Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz in a statement.The holiday shopping season, which kicks off unofficially after the US Thanksgiving holiday, is critical for retailers from Wal-Mart Stores Incorporated to Best Buy Company Incorporated to Gap Incorporated.The reason for the updated forecast is that NRF, a retail industry trade group, found that industry sales for November rose 4.5 per cent year-over-year, and that the average American has completed far less of their holiday shopping than in previous years -- an indication that many shoppers bought for themselves in November and have lots of shopping left to do.While retailers are cautiously optimistic that the season will turn out better than initially expected, NRF President Matthew Shay said a number factors, including the debt crisis in Europe and continued political wrangling in Washington, could impact consumer spending this holiday season and into 2012.The NRFs figures compare sales at retail stores with the year-earlier period and exclude restaurants, gasoline, automobiles and online sales.That is why its results look different than those announced by the US Commerce Department, which said US retail sales grew a weaker than expected 0.2 per cent in November.
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