Late Holiday Shopping Puts Retailers Ahead
Retailers won the closely watched holiday skirmish with shoppers, who opened their wallets a little bit despite a still struggling economy, fewer discounts than last year and limited variety on store shelves, according to newly released data.</br></br>A late boost from procrastinating consumers and an extra day of shopping between Thanksgiving and Christmas helped to lift total retail sales, excluding automobiles and gas, by 3.6% over the year-earlier period through Christmas Eve, according to MasterCard Inc.'s SpendingPulse unit.</br></br>Excluding the extra shopping day, the sales increase would have been closer to 1%, MasterCard said.</br></br>While some retail sectors fared better than others, overall "I'd call it a good season because the profits will be good," said Maggie Gilliam, president of Gilliam & Co., an independent retail research and advisory firm in New York.</br></br>Retailers are increasingly confident that the shopping season this year performed substantially better than last year's, when consumer appetites for anything but essentials were minimal and stores cut their prices to the bone to try to lure customers. Despite these efforts, the 2008 holiday season was the worst in decades.