How did Christmas turn out for our nation's retailers? Sort of meh:
December retail sales were down a fraction of a percent from 2022 but still well above their pre-pandemic trend.
4 thoughts on “Holiday sales were flat in 2023”
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Cats, charts, and politics
I for one would like to see the US economy NOT be dependent on everybody going hog wild and buying like crazy at Christmas, aka "the holiday season." Gifts are nice; the mandatory gifting frenzy of expensive stuff and useless tchotchkeys and way too many toys is not healthy. And having retailers absolutely dependent on ultra-high sales at this one time of year ain't good, either.
Now, get offa my lawn, ya durn kids. Bah! Humbug!
When companies report their bottom line, they don't adjust for inflation.
My go to, calculatedriskblog, had this to say:
From the Census Bureau report:
Advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for December 2023, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $709.9 billion, up 0.6 percent from the previous month, and up 5.6 percent above December 2022. Total sales for the 12 months of 2023 were up 3.2 percent (±0.4 percent) from 2022. ... The October 2023 to November 2023 percent change was unrevised from up 0.3 percent.
For the year, sales kept pace with inflation. Sales were already high so that sounds good.
But the December sales were above what they were last year, even inflation adjusted. So contrary to what Kevin said, Christmas sales were good this year.
Another attempt at an inflation adjustment that makes things less clear.
Its unclear how Kevin adjusted the nominal sales amounts, but did he use CPI or PCE which both include lots of items that are not included in the retail sales figures? What do we learn if we adjust actual retail sales by the rate of price increases for houses and medical care?
Its a bit like adjusting your income by the price change of tea in pakistan.....it tells you something, but probably not something useful.