{"id":128541,"date":"2025-11-10T22:08:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T22:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/128541\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T22:08:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T22:08:10","slug":"nrf-points-to-momentum-for-holiday-shopping-thats-expected-to-pass-1t-mark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/128541\/","title":{"rendered":"NRF points to ‘momentum’ for holiday shopping that’s expected to pass $1T mark"},"content":{"rendered":"

(TNND) \u2014 The National Retail Federation pointed to October sales growth as consumer “momentum”<\/a> heading into the holiday shopping season.<\/p>\n

October retail sales grew 5% from last year and were up in most categories, led by digital products, like books and games, clothing, and sporting goods, the NRF said Monday.<\/p>\n

The October report comes on the heels of the NRF\u2019s annual holiday forecast<\/a> that called for sales to pass the $1 trillion mark for the first time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are bullish about spending this holiday season,\u201d NRF president and CEO Matthew Shay said in a press call last week.<\/p>\n

Shay and his NRF colleagues acknowledged low consumer sentiment<\/a>. But they said that doesn\u2019t seem to be keeping folks from spending on special occasions, including this holiday season.<\/p>\n

Shay said consumers, who account for nearly 70% of our national economic activity, have been surprisingly active despite inflation fears from tariffs.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of that is due to the creative work of retailers to avoid passing on any price increases. A lot of that is due to consumers pulling sales forward, inventory coming in, pre-tariff inventory, the stop-and-start nature of the tariffs themselves all contributed,\u201d Shay said. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut nevertheless, we’ve seen spending behavior that is very strong through the year. But we know that inside of that strength, consumers are being much more price sensitive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark Mathews, the NRF\u2019s chief economist and executive director of research, said inflation is changing how people spend, rather than the total amount they are spending.<\/p>\n

And he said as prices on products rise, Americans will likely accommodate by pulling back on eating out or other forms of recreation.<\/p>\n

The NRF is forecasting holiday sales, from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31, to increase between 3.7% and 4.2% and reach a total between $1.01 trillion and $1.02 trillion.<\/p>\n

Americans spent $976 billion last year.<\/p>\n

By comparison, holiday sales totaled just over $600 billion a decade ago.<\/p>\n

There are challenges to holiday spending this year, according to the NRF.<\/p>\n

The government shutdown is one, though Mathews said spending impacted by the shutdown is likely to recover once it\u2019s over.<\/p>\n

Weather always has the potential to be a thorn for holiday shoppers, he said.<\/p>\n

And tariffs add uncertainty and price pressure for consumers and retailers, the NRF said.<\/p>\n

The NRF and Hackett Associates, a maritime trade and supply chain consulting firm, reported that holiday store shelves are well stocked.<\/p>\n

And import activity is expected to fall <\/a>over the last couple of months of the year.<\/p>\n

Hackett Associates<\/a> partner Daniel Hackett told The National News Desk on Monday that retailers usually bring in most of their holiday merchandise by August or September. So, a slowdown in November and December isn\u2019t unusual.<\/p>\n

But retailers tried to beat tariffs as best they could this year, and the peak of import activity arrived a month or so earlier than normal.<\/p>\n

He said the November and December drop in imports is also expected to be steeper than usual because of the pull-forward of cargo.<\/p>\n

Trade policy is more settled than it was earlier this year, although plenty of questions remain. President Donald Trump\u2019s tariffs are now before the Supreme Court<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven with these recent trade agreements, we’re looking at elevated tariff levels compared to where we were in January,\u201d Hackett said.<\/p>\n

The effective tariff rate<\/a> is around 18%, according to the Yale Budget Lab. That\u2019s the highest since 1934 and up from 2.4% at the beginning of the year.<\/p>\n

The NRF officials said retailers have done what they can to blunt the impact of tariffs on their customers.<\/p>\n

And Mathews said in last week\u2019s press call that retailers are expected to be pretty aggressive with promotions this holiday season.<\/p>\n

He also said consumers are indicating they\u2019re holding off for Black Friday sales.<\/p>\n

Shay said Americans are planning and budgeting for holiday spending. And they are making it a priority.<\/p>\n

But seasonal hiring might be at its lowest level in more than 15 years, he said.<\/p>\n

The NRF is forecasting between 265,000 and 365,000 seasonal hires, down from 442,000 last year.<\/p>\n

That seems to reflect the weakness in the jobs market.<\/p>\n

But Mathews said unemployment remains in check, and wages have now exceeded inflation for over 30 months.<\/p>\n

He said consumers<\/a> remain in pretty good shape, even if he recognized the struggles felt by lower-income households.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(TNND) \u2014 The National Retail Federation pointed to October sales growth as consumer “momentum” heading into the holiday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,13826,219,53375,89104,1943,111,139,89103,69,13287,63364,7677],"class_list":["post-128541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-consumer-spending","tag-economy","tag-holiday-shopping","tag-import-activity","tag-inflation","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nrf","tag-nz","tag-retail-sales","tag-seasonal-hiring","tag-tariffs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}