Holiday sales are up 8.7% over last year! Mastercard just came

[FloridaPat]

out with the information on CNBC. Why don't I believe this? Anyone heard anything else? I wonder if the number of items bought is up that much or is it actual money spent?

[johncoby2]

1. I agree. This sounds way to high. I cant remember anthing above....

a 4% increase even in the boom of the 90's.

[Jayhawk Lib]

12. This Can't be.

There are way too many people un or underemployed for this to be. And with the high energy prices, people do not have money to spend on Christmas

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

2. Yesterday's big story was about people "flocking" to stores...

Supposedly Christmas sales were "disappointing," and retailers were depending on day-after-Christmas sales.

Also, a friend who works at Tower Records told me that gift cards are not counted as a sale until they are redeemed. So a mixture of people impulse-buying with credit cards and others redeeming gift cards MIGHT have resulted in a spike yesterday. Who knows?

[jmowreader]

14. The gift card angle sounds promising

The reason they're not counted as a "sale" until redeemed is that they're basically a deposit. A person with a...oh, let's say Lowe's just for the fuck of it...gift card could buy anything in the store, at any store in the chain, and the proper number can't be credited to the proper department until merchandise goes out the door. And the retail industry was hot and heavy, as they have been for many years, on gift cards as "the perfect present for everyone you know." We completely sold out of gift cards, except for the ones the dumbasses sent us that say "Happy Birthday," "Wow Mom" and "Father's Day" on them. And we sold so fucking many gift cards, people were even buying those.

Home improvement stores have a HUGE problem when it comes to gift cards, though. Let's say I give you a $1000 gift card to Target. You will probably go to Target on December 26 and buy a thousand dollars worth of Christmas closeouts, clothes, jewelry, food, beauty aids, whatever. If I also give you a $1000 gift card to Home Depot, you're going to think "I'd really like to replace the decking with Trex, we need a new grill, we'll buy a new fridge in March, we need to replace the doors..." Most of the stuff you'd do with a massive gift card...you aren't going to do when there's a foot of snow on the ground. You'll wait. So we're sitting there with all this potential on our books...just collecting interest that's going into Atlanta's coffers, not mine...

[pitohui]

20. doesn't sound right to me

the store has the $$$ when the gift card is purchased

indeed, store comes out w. biggest "win" if the recipient never spends the gift card, which often happens because i like to choose where i shop (near my house or hotel) rather than drive 2 hrs to shop where my gift giver thinks i should shop (yeah, this actually happpened to me)

when the gift cards are redeemed, it can only knock down, not improve the bottom line of the business reports

what do i not understand abt this? i'm sure i'm missing something

[jmowreader]

26. Here's how it works

There are "merchandise" and "non-merchandise" departments in any store.

I'll use Home Depot as an example because I know their departments.

When I pull a Sales by Department Report, here's what I'll get:

Non Merchandise Departments:
Fees
Deposits
Gift Cards
Tool Rental
Non Merchandise Subtotal

Merchandise Departments:
Lumber
Building Materials
Flooring
Paint
Hardware
Plumbing
Electrical and Lighting
Garden and Seasonal
Kitchen and Bath
Blinds and Wallpaper
Appliances
Merchandise Subtotal

Store Total

Note that gift cards are in the non-merchandise subtotal. Also notice what else is up there--fees for things like door-install preinspections, deposits for sample books, and rental tools. None of those things involve merchandise going out the door and staying there. (There is talk of moving tool rental from non-merchandise to merchandise, because a tool rental contract is really a sale--we sell you the use of the item so you can get your job done.)

Come at gift cards this way. You buy one and give it to your mom. Your mom buys a skid of concrete with it. Did I sell you a little piece of plastic, or a skid of concrete? If you say "both," that means the $100 you paid really works out to $200--a hundred when you buy the card, another $100 when she buys the concrete. No, she bought concrete using money held on account with the store.

[Jane Austin]

29. That works when it's store-by-store reporting. Today's reports are

from the credit card companies, aren't they?

They don't make all those deparmental distinctions.

That's for keeping your own store's bookeeping straight.

That $200 wouldn't exist as a charge, because you don't charge the customer's credit card when the gift card is redeemed - - only when the gift card is purchased.

[Jane Austin]

28. I don't get that either. We sell lots of gift certificates

at our business, especially the kind we can email for you and make it look like you didn't forget somebody until the last minute. :)

We charge the amount of the gift certificate to the buyer's credit card when the web order is processed, generally within twelve hours of receiving the order, and usually much quicker than that.

The funds are credited to us by the credit card company in the next day or so as always.

Seems to me if it's the credit card companies reporting holiday sales, the gift card and gift certificate sales would certainly be reported along with every other credit card charge.

Yes, we welcome people using those because they often do spend more than the gift certificate amount, so we get some additional sales after Christmas. The amounts spent over the face value of the certificate are charged at that time to the customer's credit card.

So if there's any accounting method that separates out gift cards and certificates from other purchases, it sure isn't the credit card companies - - and those are the ones reporting today.

Those funds are taken out of your account immediately and are credited to the store where you bought the card almost as fast.

[hatrack]

18. Well, here's my anecdotal after-Christmas experience

Went to the local mall, which is sort of mid-level, though anchored by a Dillard's, at about 12:30 on the 26th.

I wandered a bit before biting the bullet and doing what I came to do (buy some shoes). I went down to the bookstore, which had about four other people in it. With the exception of Target, the best I saw anywhere was medium-busy. Most of the traffic seemed to be mall walkers and teenagers hitting up the cookie shop or going to the movies, though a few people had bags in their hands.

The shoe store had a little bit of foot traffic. However, other than one other guy who was paying at the register just as I arrived, I was the only customer, though I tried on three different pairs of running shoes and spent about 15 minutes there.

[ProfessorGAC]

3. NBC Reported 3% Just This Morning

Somebody is reporting the wrong number. The same news organization has two different stories?
The Professor

[Selatius]

4. Take it with a grain of salt

The economy since 2001 has been uneven. It's been going up and down, and if it hasn't been doing that, it's been going sideways and not doing much of anything.

[Kadie]

5. Maybe Mastercard sales are up?

8.7% more people charging their purchases this year?



:shrug:

[Jeffersons Ghost]

10. I wonder...

Did the reported increase in credit-card sales reflect that fewer people can afford to pay cash for gifts and fuel this year?

[w13rd0]

6. Everyone did Christmas on credit....

...that's not exactly encouraging, except to MBNA. Biden should get a hefty bonus in his payola though.

[no_hypocrisy]

15. You beat me to the punch. Title should be "Personal Debt up 8.7%"

[Mind_your_head]

7. A friend of mine works at Home Depot

Was talking to him just this morning about how sales were at his store. He said sales were way down and they're going to be cutting everyone's hours big time.

I guess a lot of folks didn't get those cordless drills, sanders, electric screwdrivers, and tool boxes, etc. this year.

[pitohui]

21. ask to be transferred to home depot, covington, louisiana

desperately in need of help & can't keep product on the shelf, i bet he can get all the hours he wants and more than he wants and prob. at higher pay

[Mind_your_head]

30. Hey, I was just reporting what he told me this morning

I can't believe/understand why people are jumping all over me about this! It's really uncalled for.

Peace

[jmowreader]

8. Do good or bad boys and girls get drywall for Christmas?

In my store, the most popular products for the month of December were drywall, insulation and replacement windows.

Drywall sold better than holiday decorations.

Insulation sold better than power tools.

And replacement windows sold better than small appliances.

We sold out of drywall twice. I've still got lots of Christmas lights out of the initial shipment. (And they're at a really good price right now, so come on down and get you some. We even have some of the Traditional lights with the big fifties-style bulbs and the Happy Fun Ball-esque warning on the back of the box.) I got two truckloads of insulation, and getting insulation out of Owens-fucking-Corning is like pulling teeth even on a good day. As for replacement windows? Shit, man, if I coulda scored another truckload of replacement windows I would have sold it too...and we got four this month already!

Now let me ask you: how, exactly, do you wrap drywall? Do you buy six rolls of Big Lots Cheap Ass Wrapping Paper and make a big present out of it, do you stick a bow on top of the stack and call it good, or do you just take the shit home, screw it to the wall and everyone stand in front of it and scream "thank you Santa"?

[pitohui]

23. good boys/ girls -- and yes it;'s the little things too

heck we haven't even been able to get ceiling tiles or some part for putting the fence together

it is to scream, i think people must be finding out when the trucks are unloaded and waiting w. baited breath to be there in time

[ThomWV]

9. Not A Chance

Every time I went into town, to one of the shopping malls, in the last month I have found it remarkable how few people were out shopping. By remarkable I mean just what I said. It was so obvious that no one was shopping that on several occasions I have remarked on it both here and to people I've been out talking to.

Sales up? My ass.

More feel-good propooooooganda.

[TNDemo]

11. They need to ask the stores, not the credit card companies.

Credit card business may be up because people don't have the cash to pay for it this year as opposed to other years but the stores's sales totals are what matters.

[Deja Q]

37. Bingo. Buying necessities doesn't translate into a great holiday year.

They can spin all the yarn they want. The resultant pullover vest will be so flimsy that one touch will unravel it.

[porphyrian]

13. Is that number of sales or amount of money spent? - n/t

[stanwyck]

19. Good point.

did actual revenue from sales increase? Or the number of sales?
For less expensive items.
Most people I know had a "smaller" Christmas this year. There was too much concern about the future...home heating, employment, gasoline, tuition costs.

[Orangepeel]

25. it is money spent

retail spending is measured in sales dollars, not the number of transactions.

[pitohui]

16. i believe it

down here it is, there are too many people who have to replace entire house & contents, sales tax receipts are up almost 50 percent and it will be more when the nov/dec report comes out, because relatively few people had checks in hand by october!

so i don't believe it's all christmas spending no but no way spending can't be up when there is that much buying needed

to picture the scale of it, remember that ENTIRE PARISHES (counties) were wiped out, such as st. bernard and cameron, not just one town but many towns


it is a sick irony that natural disasters actually improve the GNP because of the money they require to be spent

[Jane Austin]

31. "it is a sick irony that natural disasters actually improve the GNP"

So do wars. There was a hurricane someplace in 2003 and the locals couldn't find any plywood with which to board up their houses and stores.

All the plywood had been shipped to Iraq for flooring for military housing.

I've thought for years that the only two reasons the economic figures look even half-way decent are that (1) productivity is up because employers are making fewer employees do more work, and (2) because there is so much money being spent on the bush's war.

[bush_is_wacko]

35. Bingo!

And war expenses are also very pricey. Hell, Halliburton charges $600, I believe for a six pack of Pepsi! I bet that plywood goes for a stellar price too!

In my neighborhood the ONLY people that are having a good "Holiday Season" are the ones working for defense industry companies. In fact my next door neighbor works for a BIG defense industry company and is finishing his SECOND addition onto his house for the holidays. His house looks like a monstrosity compared to the other modest homes in this neighborhood! I'm surprised he got the permits to do what he is doing. We are talking TRIPLE the size of the ORIGINAL home.

OOPS! I forgot, he put another two car garage attachment onto the house when he first moved in several years ago, so that makes THREE additions, plus the perfect landscaping to the back yard and I assume once he is finished he'll finish up with the front yard as well. He's flying high on the big bucks but I am clueless why he stays in THIS neighborhood.

[Jane Austin]

36. (OT) Hope they don't have a dog.

All that perfect landscaping in the back yard usually involves a bunch of poisons.

I've read that doggy lymphoma is associated with pesticide use.

Here's Auntie Jane's Helpful Hint for Dog Owners for the day:

When you walk your dog, don't let him walk across the good lawns. Stick to the weedy ones; they probably haven't been poisoned.

Also, stay out of the curb area of the street. That's where the pesticide runoff goes.

Your dog is going barefoot and all that crap is readily absorbed through its pads.

[norml]

17. Shouldn't that be people putting things on their credit cards is up 8.7%?

Or are they talking about anything other than their own company's business?

[Orangepeel]

22. includes purchases made via credit and debit cards, cash and checks

WSJ explanation of the report

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113564495859931796.html?mod=home_whats_news_us

The SpendingPulse data covers the period from Friday, Nov. 25, through Saturday, Dec. 24, a 30-day shopping season this year compared with only 29 days in 2004. The projection is based on data and analysis that includes purchases made via credit and debit cards, cash and checks. It includes sales at stores and on the Internet, sales of gift cards and sales of food in stores and restaurants. It doesn't include auto or gasoline sales.

The strongest category gains came in home furnishings, including linens and picture frames, with sales up 15%, according to the SpendingPulse data. Sales of consumer electronics grew 11%, fueled in part by prices for flat-screen TVs and digital cameras that were lower than last year. Sales of sporting goods, books, music and video advanced 6.4%, while apparel rose 5.8%, despite the lack of must-have items this year. Women's apparel did a little better, with an 8.2% gain. Furniture sales rose 5.3%. Sales of jewelry slid 4.6%, perhaps as shoppers funneled their big-ticket spending into electronics.

Online spending continued to explode this year, as retailers offered Web-only discounts and shipped gifts later than ever. Holiday retail sales on the Internet are expected to top predictions of $19.6 billion in sales this year, a figure that is 24% ahead of the $15.8 billion consumers spent online last holiday season, according to comScore Networks Inc., a Reston, Va., market-research firm.

[pitohui]

24. i believe the home furnishings etc.

makes sense to me, even if people in parts north are cutting back on spending slightly, when you have people on the coast buying entire households full of new furniture, TVs, etc. then spending can only average higher

besides people always say they cut back but rarely ever do they actually pull out last year's receipts, i think most people who say they cut back are actually spending the same which feels like a cutback because of inflation, the new is off some products, they see others continuing to upgrade lives & expectations so feel they're spending less by contrast etc.

make sense?

[Jane Austin]

32. "strongest category gains came in home furnishings, including linens"

Gee, ya think people are buying blankets to stay warm this winter when they can't afford to heat their houses?

Thanks, bushco.

[Orangepeel]

34. the rich are buying more

also from the article:

Throughout the season, consumers proved willing to fork over for big markdowns on laptop computers, cashmere and other high-end goods. According to SpendingPulse data, purchases above $1,000 grew 13% and purchases between $500 to $999 rose 12%. Meanwhile, sales below $100 rose 5.9%.

[warrens]

27. The real numbers won't be available for another week

And look at profits, not gross sales. Here's what I know. I had a definite list from my family. I found everything and with one exception, they were all on sale. The one exception was an online purchase, but everything else I bought was discounted at least 10 percent, and 40 percent for some.

[tsuki]

33. Did they catagorize where the money was spent?

[wadestock]

38. It will all be ending soon.....

The middle class has been suckered into buying mega quantities of cheap chinese crap that will have a lifespan of about 2 years. They went into every credit card they could to get the crap and even mortgaged their homes away in large part for this stuff, new cars, etc.

There is no more room to exploit huge phoney increases in the equity of homes as was done over the last 5 years to fuel this enormous spending spree.

Blame it on being uneducated about the low quality of these products, not seeing how this fed into the dismemberment of the US manufacturing base, and how it just fueled China's control over America.

Dumb America.

[wishlist]

39. ABC said dept stores did worse than last year but discounters did better

On ABC's Good Morning America today their analyst stated that department stores (like Sears, Penney's, Macy's etc) had sales below last year while the discounters like KMart, Walmart, Target and Dollar stores had stronger sales. Conclusion was that consumers were trying to stretch their dollars.

[Mugsy]

40. "Sales" calculated in dollars, not purchases.

The problem with Master Card's figure is that it is based on a fixed dollar amount. In other words, if the price of everything has gone up, plus the number of extravagent purchases by people in the higher tax brackets increases, then the total dollar figure goes up.

However, FedEx reported this week that fewer packages from online sales were shipped this year than last year, a trend you wouldn't expect with the growing popularity of online shopping.

[rinsd]

41. Amazon had record sales this year....

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/12/26/news/bxamazon.php

Also here's an article stating the rise of online sales this year compared to last.

http://internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=17058

Do you have a link for that FedEx news?

According to this FedEx Express business was up (based ob $ figures which could be skewed from increased fees and fuel costs)

http://today.reuters.com/business/newsArticle.aspx?type=ousiv&storyID=2005-12-21T171138Z_01_BAU147928_RTRIDST_0_BUSINESSPRO-TRANSPORT-FEDEX-EARNS-DC.XML

[FloridaPat]

42. MasterCard is thinking of going public next month! Lots of spin as

to what was really going on this Xmas. Some say overall it was bad. They're saying this is the worst stock market performance during Xmas in 10 years. The inverse yield curve so far has always preceeded a slowdown or recession. Target did better than Walmart, but Walmart's online store did great.

My head is ready to explode.