Even though the weekend after the Thanksgiving holiday last year had pretty strong sales volume, card processor First Data reported that the same weekend this year posted even stronger sales gains.
In addition to helping boost the economy, the increased sales activity often means credit unions and other card issuers see greater income from credit and debit card interchange.
"Retail year-over-year dollar volume growth on Thursday-Friday was 6.3% and transaction growth was 7.3%," First Data reported from its SpendTrend analysis of card activity over the shopping weekend. "This performance was especially impressive in light of tough comparables for Black Friday 2010, when dollar volume growth was quite strong.
Some merchant categories that saw a boost in dollar volume growth this year were Electronic/Appliances, Clothing and Accessory Stores, and Non-Store Retailers. Cyber Monday continued the spending trend of the Thanksgiving weekend, with e-commerce year-over-year dollar volume growth of nearly 20.0%."
The card processor reported that product discounting hurt sales growth at the individual item level.
"Overall year-over-year average ticket growth was 0.7%, while average ticket growth at Retailers declined 0.9%," First Data reported, adding that food service (including restaurants and quick service restaurants) dollar volume growth was 11.7%, versus 9.6% last year.
"The holiday spending season is off to a good solid start. Consumers definitely responded to the early openings and discount prices on Black Friday." said Silvio Tavares, senior vice president and division manager of First Data.
"We continued to see strong momentum through Cyber Monday," Tavares said.
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