Regarding the impact of the East Coast blizzard which fell on December 26, McNamara commented, “For overall retail, the day after Christmas is one of December’s lower ranked days in terms of spending levels, even though it is one of the biggest in terms of foot traffic. In 2009 for example when the day after Christmas fell on a Saturday, it represented 2.5% of all of December’s sales. The last time the day after Christmas was on a Sunday was in 2004, and that represented about 2% of total retail sales ex-auto for December. That said the day after Christmas is more important to specific sectors such as Men’s Apparel, Department Stores and Luxury.”
In terms of sector specifics, December 2010 had more positive than negative stories, owing to the generally strong holiday season:
Year-over-year Total Apparel sales in December saw the third consecutive monthly increase. At 10.9% this was the year’s most vigorous monthly year-over-year growth rate, and the highest posting since March 2007. All of Apparel’s sub-sectors posted strong increases with the Family and Children’s categories helping to drive robust year-over-year growth within the sector. In 2010, Total Apparel has enjoyed 9 out of 12 months of year-over-year gains. We should note however that the December 2009 comparisons were not very difficult.
The Electronics and Appliances sector posted a year-over-year increase of 1.2% in December, following two consecutive months of year-over-year declines. The Consumer Electronics sub-category was up 1.5% year-over-year for December, though overall dollar spending levels suffered due to some decline in pricing power on the larger ticket items such as TVs. The Appliance sub-category declined by 1.3%.
Continuing to gain share at a steady rate, the eCommerce channel grew 17.6% year over year in December. This was the highest year-over-year increase since December 2007. Much of the growth was driven by the online Total Apparel sub-category, which grew 28.2% year over year, and even stronger showings in online sales of Family and Children’s clothing, and Footwear. Online sales of Electronics were up a solid 14%, while online Jewelry was up 5.9%.
December is a key month for sales in the Jewelry sector, and this month, Jewelry sales posted a double digit growth rate year over year, increasing 10.4%. This was the first time since June 2010 that the sector enjoyed double digit growth, and in December, the increase was driven primarily by strong performance by independent jewelers as well as the high-tier segment.
Luxury ex-Jewelry, which measures sales at high-end restaurants, food stores, department stores and general apparel categories, was up 8.5% year over year, posting the strongest results since May 2010.
