Good retail news

Before the end of the year there was a lot of murmuring about the holiday shopping season being subpar. Just to pick a name out of a hat, Paul Krugman wrote a week ago:

It was a merry Christmas for Sharper Image and Neiman Marcus, which reported big sales increases over last year’s holiday season. It was considerably less cheery at Wal-Mart and other low-priced chains. We don’t know the final sales figures yet, but it’s clear that high-end stores did very well, while stores catering to middle- and low-income families achieved only modest gains. Based on these reports, you may be tempted to speculate that the economic recovery is an exclusive party, and most people weren’t invited. You’d be right.

Well, the data are coming in, and things look pretty good across the board. From today’s Chicago Tribune:

The world’s biggest retail trade group expects the 2003 holiday season to be the most robust since 1999, and better yet, the fun may not be over. The National Retail Federation believes holiday revenue will rise 5.7 percent from the year-ago period, the fastest growth in four years, and feels the industry can sustain its momentum in 2004 as the economy continues to perk up.

Read the whole thing — there’s promising news about employment in the retail sector as well. And here’s the National Retail Foundation’s (NRF) press release on the topic, which has the following quote:

“This has clearly been a much stronger holiday season than last year,” said NRF President and CEO Tracy Mullin. “Consumers have not only shown that they are ready to spend, but it appears they are spreading their spending more equally among diverse retail segments. This is a great sign for the industry.” (emphasis added)

Slightly off-topic, the NRF also reports robust online sales:

More than half (59%) of retailers reported revenue growth for the 2003 online holiday season of 25 percent or higher. Almost a third (30%) reported revenue increases of 50 percent or more. Online shopping was also a positive experience for consumers during the 2003 eHoliday, with 89 percent of shoppers somewhat or very satisfied with their online buying experience, up from 84 percent last year.

UPDATE: The New York Times has more mixed news:

Store sales for last month, measured against the same stores open in December 2002, rose 3.7 percent, according to the Bloomberg composite same-store sales index. Last year, called one of the worst in decades by analysts, holiday sales rose 2.2 percent. While the numbers released yesterday were better than last year’s, they were less than the double-digit turnaround retailers had hoped for in September, before three major snowstorms hit the Northeast, and buyers told pollsters there was no must-have toy or item of clothing.

At the same time, this was the most interesting phenomenon in the story:

All told, the discount stores that strived for the high-end seemed to do well. Costco, the discounter that offers some high-end branded goods at a discount, rose 8 percent in December, while Target, which some analysts say has lost a lot of its chic image, rose 4 percent.