The compressed period between Thanksgiving and Christmas is playing havoc with retail buying statistics. With five fewer days between those two holidays, comparisons to sales last year can be way up or way down, depending on how the statistics are read.
Compared to weekends after Thanksgiving (four), online spending this past weekend (Dec. 20 and 21) was down 17%, comScore Inc reports. But compared to the weekend before Christmas last year, sales are up 98%, comScore says. Online sales were $677 million for Dec. 20 and 21, 2008. Four weekends after Thanksgiving last year, sales totaled $811 million. The weekend before Christmas last year (Dec. 22 and 23) accounted for $341 million.
“Online spending over the most recent weekend was clearly substantially heavier than the corresponding weekend nearest Christmas last year, which suggests that many consumers opted for the cozier confines of online shopping rather than having to brave the severe cold and snowstorms affecting much of the northern half of the country,” says comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni. “It’s also clear that this year’s compressed shopping season has resulted in some consumers buying online later than they did a year ago. A positive late-season boost for online retail perhaps, but it’s ultimately not going to do much to make up for the significantly shorter shopping season this year.”
Online sales for the full week ending Dec. 21 slipped 3.5% to $4.53 billion from $4.69 billion in the corresponding week a year ago, comScore reports. Year-to-date online holiday sales are down 1% from a year ago: $24.71 billion this year vs. $24.96 billion last year. December sales through Sunday are flat compared to last year: $13.52 billion vs. $13.48 billion.
ComScore continues to project an overall flat holiday shopping season for Nov. 1 to Dec. 31.
On the store front, the news was either bad or worse.
Consumers eager to complete their holiday shopping were out in force last week and their spending pushed chain-store retail sales 2.6% higher than they were in the comparable week a year ago, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers Inc. and Goldman Sachs weekly sales index.
Or they stayed home, with foot traffic falling 24% and sales falling 6.5% compared to a year ago, reports ShopperTrak Corp. The two surveys measure retail store sales slightly differently: ICSC tracks same-store sales for retail chains, while ShopperTrak measures sales in all stores.
“Despite the underlying sales weakness, the holiday-gift completion rate rose sharply from 63% in the prior week to 80%, which helped to drive the weekly sales pace,” Michael P. Niemira, ICSC chief economist, says. “This combined with the fact that a third of consumers reported in our ICSC-GS holiday surveys that they were buying more gifts instead of gift cards further helped the weekly performance. Unfortunately, though, the year-over-year sales pace remained depressed. Even with this week-over-week pickup, ICSC Research expects monthly comparable-store sales will be down 1% or slightly more for December.”
While the purchase of gifts rather than gifts cards was good for retailers’ sales last week, it will hurt post-Christmas and in January as retailers do not recognize gift card revenue until the user redeems the card.
ShopperTrak also reports that foot traffic for the last Saturday before Christmas fell 17% compared to the same day a year ago, while sales that day increased 0.5%.
Again, the calendar influences how the results can be analyzed. “The 2008 calendar shift most likely influenced Super Saturday (ShopperTrak’s term for the Saturday before Christmas) retail traffic as Super Saturday 2007(12/22/07) received more of a boost from procrastinating shoppers as the day was two days closer to Christmas,” ShopperTrak says.
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