Research Brief: Retail Sales – December 2022

Consumers reserve discretionary buys for promotional events. Apart from several necessity-based segments, spending declined across most retail categories last month, translating to a 0.6 percent drop in sales. This is significant, considering purchasing was up 12 percent year-over-year on Black Friday, and a record $11.3 billion was spent on Cyber Monday. Higher sales volumes were registered during these promotional events, but the overall decline in monthly retail sales suggests many consumers curtailed their discretionary spending during the rest of the month. This behavior is contributing to a slower pace of inflation, as in November consumer prices were up just 0.1 percent on a monthly basis, the lowest increase this year.

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