Thursday, January 9, 2014

Shoppers Stayed Home for the Holidays

We’re starting to get some impression of how the holiday shopping season went at the end of last year. And the numbers look pretty good: According to ShopperTrak, a market research firm, sales for November and December combined were up 2.7 percent over the previous year. That’s good, although not quite as strong as the 3.0 percent increase in 2012.
One trend seems very clear: People aren’t going to the malls any more. Foot traffic  in retail stores was down 14.6 percent from the year earlier. The average number of stores people visit per shopping outing has dropped from 4.5 to 5 stores in 2007 down to 3 to 3.5 stores this year.
But even though more and more of us are buying online every year, brick-and-mortar shopping remains the cornerstone of the holiday season. According to ShopperTrak, more than 90 percent of all retail purchases are still made in physical stores.

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