Holiday Retail Sales Nose-Dive

MasterCard's SpendingPulse reported much of what we already knew --- that retail sales sucked this holiday season. According to their data, despite a flurry of last-minute shopping, total retail sales, excluding automobiles, fell over the year-earlier period by 5.5% in November and 8% in December through Christmas Eve reported the Wall Street Journal. Excluding gasoline sales, the drop was 2.5% in November and 4% in December.

For the Nov 1-Dec 24 period, the data showed that online sales fell 2%, footwear sales fell 14%, Men's Apparel fell 14%, Furniture fell 20%, Women's Apparel fell 23%, electronics/appliances fell 27% and luxury goods (including jewelry) fell 35%.

According to the SpendingPulse data, spending was the lowest since they started tracking the data in 2002. SpendingPulse VP Michael McNamara told Bloomberg, "Overall this has been one of the most challenging holiday seasons on record."

Tightening credit, surging unemployment and worries about the future have all contributed to the weak retail spending environment.

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