US holiday sales miss expectations -Mastercard report
STORY: Holiday shopping in the United States was lower than expected this year, and believed to be held back by pressure on consumers by inflation and interest rates.
That's according to a report by Mastercard released Tuesday. The company says it analyzed all types of payment across both online shopping and brick and mortar stores. The only thing it didn't analyze was car sales.
In all, retail sales did rise 3.1% from November 1 through to December 24, but that was lower than the 3.7% Mastercard expected and a step down from the 7.6% jump it saw in the same period last year.
Holiday shopping discounts and promotions at giants Amazon and Walmart also weren't as deep as last year, when they were trying to offload excess stock from the pandemic.
Some of those discounts were rolled back starting in December, when shoppers were expected to buy last-minute gifts on the Saturday before Christmas.
