Holiday Spending Still Up as Christmas Draws Near
It is a season to be jolly indeed, especially for the clothing and furniture business – the very industries that Americans are spending on the most for this Holiday season. This is according to the Master Card Adviser Spending Pulse, an organization which tracks spending across the United States including credit and cash spending. But on the other side of the market, it is a sour season for the electronics business mainly because of the huge discounts on TV appliances. This has gone unchanged since last year.
According to Michael McNamara, Sending Pulse vice president for research and analysis, this is the first normal Christmas in three years. This time, there is now a real and considerable demand for a wide range of products, even the expensive ones.
The clothing business rose at an impressive 9.8 percent particularly on men’s apparel. Jewelry also rose at 2.6 percent while furniture at 3.4 percent. These figures cover the period from October 31, 2010 up to December 18, 2010.
According to various malls, “Super Saturday”, the Saturday before Christmas was packed with lots of shoppers and is now considered to be the third most crowded mall times of the year. Aside from that, the absence of major storms in the country contributed a lot to people spending more for the Holiday season.
All this traffic is indeed great encouragement for business owners. This was an unexpected high as retailers were afraid that they have ordered too many stocks for the holiday season. But fortunately, their worries proved them wrong.
Although spending slowed down during the summer season, it was only a temporary hitch and the pace easily picked up until present. Robin Lewis, CEO of the Robin Report attributed spending rates to the consumers’ slow yet steady debt repayment, a decrease in the saving rate and the increase in working hours.
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