According to the NRF, the 2008 holiday shopping season was the most challenging one in years for retailers. It was a perfect storm of negative forces that converged in November and December: A tanking economy, terrible winter storms and a calendar that gave shoppers and stores five fewer shopping days than usual.
November retail sales declined 3.4 percent over the previous year. December was even worse, with a 7.9 percent drop year-over-year. Only a few retail segments fared well, and they weren’t up by much. Health and personal-care stores did better than anyone else, seeing a year-over-year growth of 7.6 percent — when extravagant luxuries are no longer on the table, a $6 bottle of body wash becomes an affordable indulgence.
Sporting goods, hobby, and book and music stores were up but just barely, with growth of just under a percentage point from a year ago. The big losers were clothing and accessories, which bled nearly 10 percentage points over last year; furniture and home furnishings, down nearly 12 percent; and electronics and appliances, down 3 percent.
“The current economic crisis proved to be more challenging than any had anticipated,” said NRF chief economist Rosalind Wells in a statement. “Consumers showed they were more than willing to wait out retailers this year, causing increased pressure on prices.”
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