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We realize we're stereotyping, but in the United States, bigger is almost always better. Americans like their cheeseburgers triple stacked, their cars grossly oversized, and their holiday spending completely out of control. After examining mountains of retail research, we discovered holiday spending may be leveling off, but the percentage of online purchases is growing. As you can imagine, when you're dealing with numbers this large, they tend to vary depending on the source. The U.S. Department of Commerce predicted retail sales of $287 billion in the fourth quarter of 2002. According to this article from Money
magazine, the National Retail Federation, "the largest group of the nation's store chains," said sales in November and December of 2004 were $216.3 billion. This chart from about.com states sales over the Black Friday weekend increased 0.4% in 2005 and total sales over the month of November were up 1.2%. However, total sales for the week ending December 3 fell 9.3%. Jupiter Research said online sales jumped 22% over the 2004 holiday period vs. 2003. Naturally, it's a little early to predict numbers for 2005, but we have a strong suspicion they'll be, well, high. Of course, all this spending comes with a price. In 2003,
Americans spent an average of $835 on holiday gifts. As Myvesta.org points out, many spend "out of proportion" to their income. The result is one helluva fiscal headache for consumers when their credit card bills arrive.
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