Consumers rush to finish holiday shopping

- Weekly retail sales rise by 1.7%

- Sales rise 4.2% vs. same week last year

NEW YORK, December 21, 2010 – With the last full week of holiday shopping before us, consumers rushed to finish their holiday shopping this past week which ended with “Super Saturday” – December 18 – one of the busiest shopping days of the year. As a result, for the week ending December 18, weekly retail sales rose sharply by 1.7 percent, according to the ICSC-Goldman Sachs Weekly Chain Store Sales Index. In addition, retail sales, on a year-over-year basis, also improved and increased by an impressive 4.2 percent.

“Holiday-gift spending shot up over the last week with 73.9% of consumers, on average, completing their shopping, up from 56.6% in the prior week, which helped to propel weekly sales results up,” said Michael Niemira, ICSC director of research and chief economist. “Now that we are down to the wire, consumers have stepped up their shopping pace, as well as their purchases. All and all, retail shopping trends are shaping up to be very favorable for holiday sales, as well as December sales performance, for retailers,” Niemira added.

For December, ICSC Research anticipates the month will post a good performance with a year-over-year comparable-store sales growth increase of between 3.0 to 3.5 percent, industry-wide. Given the strong November performance and promising trends in early December, ICSC previously has revised its November-December holiday-season sales forecast upward by 0.5 percentage points to a range of 3.5 to 4.0 percent or potentially a tad above that range. Holiday store-sales growth is expected to be the strongest since at least 2006.