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Retail sales during the 2024 holiday season grew 4% from 2023 to $994.1 billion, an unexpectedly high increase, says the National Retail Foundation (NRF).
This number surpassed NRF’s forecast for 2024, which was that 2024 holiday sales would increase between 2.5% and 3.5%, reaching $979.5 billion to $989 billion.
Sales for the full calendar year last year reached $5.28 trillion, a record number and 3.6% over 2023. This reached the top of NRF’s expectations for total retail sales in 2024, predicting annual growth between 2.5% and 3.5% reaching $5.23 trillion to $5.28 trillion.
“Consumers came out to spend this holiday season and clearly underscored the solid growth in the U.S. economy,” says Jack Kleinhenz, NRF chief economist. “The spending pace was back to pre-pandemic growth and indicates a good start for the year ahead. While the shorter holiday shopping calendar likely influenced the continued trend of more online shopping, there was also a return to in-person shopping experiences and a focus on early buying. The 2024 figures were driven in part by lower inflation compared with 2023, particularly for goods. Even though consumers are still relatively healthy and there was a notable increase in spending, they remain budget conscious.”
In December alone, core retail sales, which exclude autos, gas and restaurants, were up 0.4% seasonally adjusted from November. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, overall retail sales in December were also up 0.4% seasonally adjusted month over month and up 3.9% unadjusted year over year.
