Sales during the holiday shopping season in the U.S. this year were up from last year as heavy discounting and more promotions encouraged U.S. consumers to spend more.
Sales during the holiday between the first of November and the 24th of December were 2.3% higher compared to 0.7% last year, according to a SpendingPulse report from MasterCard.
The increase in sales was the highest of the past three years. Christmas was a merry one for retailers said the MasterCard Advisors senior vice president Sarah Quinlan. The category that performed the best was jewelry.
Analyst have said that the holiday season for 2013 was the most competitive since the 2008 recession, as Americans battled higher taxes, stagnant wages and the government’s shutdown impact.
Retailers had to slash prices and use other promotional gimmicks to lure in customers during a season that typically generates over 30% of overall sales and more than 40% of profits.
Even though this holiday season had six fewer days of shopping between its “official start” on Thanksgiving and Christmas and bad weather, affecting sales in parts of the U.S., holiday sales clearly improved over numbers from 2012.
Last season, sales were hurt due to Superstorm Sandy along with the increased concerns over the fiscal cliff and new higher payroll taxes.
This season more was spent by consumers on children’s clothing and jewelry, while less was spent on electronics and some luxury items.
According to one research company online, online sales from November 2 to December 23 were up 10% compared to last year during the same period, but were lower than expectations.
Amazon.com announced that the entire holiday season for 2013 was its best ever, with over 36.8 million items being ordered on Cyber Monday worldwide.
Amazon also said that its membership program referred to as Amazon Prime, which gives its members free two-day delivery service clocked over 1 million new subscribers in the third week of December.
The final shopping weekend of this holiday season saw less U.S. shoppers despite more discounts, which signals that they might do more shopping after Christmas than during the same period in 2012.
