LITTLE ROCK — U.S. retailers appear to be headed for a solid Christmas selling season, although sales growth is expected to lag behind last year’s gains.
The National Retail Federation forecasts that sales for November and December will rise 4.1 percent this year, beating the 10-year average increase of 3.5 percent but short of the 5.6 percent gain in 2011.
Online sales remain a bright spot. The trade group forecasts e-commerce growth of 12 percent to about $96 billion. And “mobile” commerce — purchases made with smart phones — is expected to continue rising among shoppers.
“They’re making purchases on the go. It’s definitely changing the holiday shopping experience,” said Pam Goodfellow, consumer insights director for research firm BIGinsight. Still, she said, shoppers are “just kind of fickle right now.”
“We’ve seen some improvement in the economy and confidence is up, but there’s still a focus on making the most of their budgets,” she said.
The International Council of Shopping Centers, another retail trade group, forecasts a 3 percent increase for the November-December period. The group tempered its forecast with a caution that the economy is softening and $500 billion in automatic spending cuts at the federal level are to take effect Jan. 1 if Congress and President Barack Obama don’t agree to a plan to stop them.
Research by Deloitte LLP, a financial advisory, tax and consulting firm, found that consumers expect to spend an average of $386 on gifts this year, with discount stores and the Internet as the leading destinations. That figure is down from $395 a year ago.
Gene Monacelli, consulting retail specialist in the company’s Dallas office, said those results indicate that shoppers are “maybe a little more frugal in their spending.”
The research also found that more than a third of shoppers expect retailers to match competitors’ advertised prices, and 28 percent intend to shop on Black Friday — the Friday after Thanksgiving.
Monacelli said consumers are more optimistic than they were a year ago but remain concerned about taxes and gasoline prices.
Still, 63 percent said they expect to spend the same or more than a year ago. And among “omni-channel” shoppers — those who will be shopping in stores and online — the average shopper anticipates spending nearly $600.
The top two categories cited by shoppers in the survey were apparel, at 51 percent, and gift cards or gift certificates, at 47 percent.
Dan Toporek, vice president of communications for Wal-Mart e-commerce, said the company disclosed at a meeting with retail analysts that its online division is projected to generate $9 billion in sales in fiscal 2014. The company does not list the online sales separately in its quarterly sales and earnings report.
Wal-Mart’s focus, Toporek said, is to provide seamless access to the retailer anywhere, anytime, via online, mobile and social media in addition to its vast network of stores.
Jeff Green, who runs consulting firm Jeff Green Partners in Phoenix, anticipates that retailers will see an overall sales increase of 3 percent to 5 percent this year, but he sees the product-mix changing. Consumer electronics, long a staple of the Christmas shopping period, have become a commodity, he said, and “people buy them when they want them.”
“They’re not waiting for the holiday season,” he said.
He expects apparel to sell better this year, in part because a mild winter kept a lid on spending in the category a year ago.
“I think more people are going to be buying for themselves,” he said.
Green said he’s worried that news events — the recent elections and the potential fiscal crisis in the federal budget — will influence consumers’ attitudes.
“The more press that gets, the more I’m concerned that the closer we get to Christmas, the more freaked out people are going to get,” he said.
Jonathan Johnson, president of e-commerce firm overstock.com, said he expects e-commerce growth to continue to outpace bricksand-mortar store sales as more and more consumers become comfortable with shopping online.
Smart phones, tablet computers and mobile commerce bode well for e-commerce in general, he said.
The company, based in Salt Lake City, on Oct. 25 reported its best-ever third-quarter results for the period ending Sept. 30. Highlights included net income of $2.7 million versus a $7.8 million loss for the same period a year earlier, and revenue of $255.4 million, up from $239.7 million.
Rival eBay Inc., a global commerce platform and payments company, for the same period reported net income of $597 million, up from $491 million a year earlier, on revenue of $3.4 billion, up from $3 billion.
Business, Pages 71 on 11/11/2012