I’m having a bit of difficulty reconciling the early reports of Thanksgiving weekend traffic with this one from Seeking Alpha. Citing data from the National Retail Federation they say:
- The National Retail Federation says 190M U.S. consumers shopped from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday and spent an average of $361.90 on holiday items during the five-day period.
- Shopping traffic (online and store) was up 14% Y/Y and average spending per consumer was 16% higher.
That would be great news if true. Don’t ask me to explain it.
Reality is probably in between.
If sales were below expectations – then retailers would be aggressive in discounting; but I have not seen evidence of that browsing.
On the other hand, it is not an ebullient mood either.