- Online shopping surged to a record high despite the unusually short holiday season, according to a Mastercard report released Thursday.
- Overall retail sales grew 3.4% year-over-year while online sales spiked 18.8% over the same period, the report said.
- The holiday season serves as a crucial period for retailers, as traffic can drive up to 40% of yearly revenue, according to Reuters.
- While department stores saw sales sink 1.8% from the year-ago period, their online sales jumped 6.9% as more consumers turned to e-commerce for better deals between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
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Retailers had six fewer days than last year to boost revenue and offload holiday inventories, yet overall sales grew in 2019 as online shopping surged to a record high, according to a Mastercard report released Thursday.
Thanksgiving landed a week later in 2019 compared to the year prior, leaving businesses with the shortest holiday shopping season since 2013. Though the Thanksgiving-to-Christmas period threatened to curb shopping revenue, total holiday sales grew 3.4% year-over-year, and online sales leaped 18.8%, Mastercard reported. E-commerce sales made up nearly 15% of all holiday revenue, the report added. Online shopping allows consumers to better compare prices and similar items, offering key advantages to shopping at brick-and-mortar locations or malls.
"Due to a later than usual Thanksgiving holiday, we saw retailers offering omnichannel sales earlier in the season, meeting consumers' demand for the best deals across all channels and devices," Mastercard senior adviser Steve Sadove said.
The holiday season marks a critical period for retailers, as traffic can drive up to 40% of the year's sales, according to Reuters.
Several industries posted massive growth in e-commerce sales through the holiday period. Specialty apparel sales spiked 17% year-over-year, and online sales of electronics jumped 10.7%, according to the report. Jewelry sales rose 8.8%.
Department stores saw overall sales tumble 1.8% from the year-ago period. The businesses' online sales grew 6.9%, signaling a continued trend away from in-person shopping.
The Mastercard report echoes the optimism shown in December's consumer sentiment survey. The report, released by the University of Michigan, showed consumer sentiment rising to a seven-month high. The recent "phase-one" US-China trade deal and waning recession fears should drive the metric even higher, Randy Frederick, Schwab Center for Financial Research vice president, said.
"The yield curve has uninverted and, secondly, the phase-one trade deal happened. Those two headwinds are out of the way," Frederick said. "If anything, that should boost consumer and investor confidence even more going forward."
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