Yearender U.S. holiday sales forecast, 2.8% increase

There will be an expected moderate increase of 2.8% in the holiday sales for the year 2015.  Analytics firm RetailNext said on Friday that the slow movement of the economy will signify on consumer expenditure.

The company that trails large U.S. retailers and specialty stores also considers foot traffic to fall by 8.1% during November and December from a year ago.  But shoppers will likely spend a little more on average than a year earlier, during the most gainful season for retailers.  Some stores make about one-third of their annual profits in the last two months of the year.

The National Federation last week estimated a 3.7% increase in holiday sales, little less than last year since U.S. consumers remain concerned about a possible government shutdown, slow creation, and income growth.   There will also be a slower retail growth this holiday season, showing worries about disorder in the financial markets including the dull economy as forecasted by analysts, according to Reuters.

Holiday shopping as forecasted by the market research firm NPD could show the slowest year-on-year growth since 2009.  AlixPartners, a consulting firm, said it expected 2.8% to 3.4% growth, down from 4.4% in the 2014 holiday season.

On the other hand, WWD reported that the gains will be driven largely by a 16.2% jump in digital sales.  RetailNext based its predictions from 100,000 sensors in stores through sorted trillions of data points.  The boost in expected sales is reportedly based on year-over-year total retail sales, not including automobiles and petroleum, as reported by Fashion Times.

"Today's shopping journeys require retailers to seamlessly share knowledge internally between digital, mobile and physical channels to optimize sales for the enterprise," Shelley Kohan, vice president of retail consulting at RetailNext, told WWD.

Brick-and-mortar sales for the 2015 holiday seasons could be widely different as per RetailNext.  Electronics, fast fashion, outlet and warehouse clubs recently have been experiencing sales gains while other stores reported of 7 to 8% decline.

"The Retail Performance Pulse delivers valuable shopping data insights for this most critical time of year for our retailer customers, and combined with somewhat positive macroeconomic indicators, it signals a cautiously optimistic Holiday outlook," Bridget Johns, head of customer success at RetailNext, said, according to PR Newswire. "The daily Thanksgiving Flash of the Retail Performance Pulse over the five-day shopping holiday weekend will provide frequent, near real-time updates toward what shoppers are doing - and not doing - at stores."