Retail Sales Were a Turkey and Thanksgiving Isn’t Solely To Blame - The Wall Street Journal

Shoppers at Macys in Manhattan soon after the doors opened at 5 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day. Photo: bryan r. smith/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

By

Justin Lahart

Justin Lahart
The Wall Street Journal
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Dec. 13, 2019 11:36 am ET

Retail sales were weak last month and, while that may have been due to quirks of the calendar, it serves as a reminder that Americans aren’t in a rush to spend their money.

The Commerce Department on Friday reported that retail sales rose a seasonally adjusted 0.2% from a month earlier in November, falling well short of the 0.5% economists had expected. Worse, many store categories that depend heavily on holiday shopping, such as department stores, saw outright declines.

Some of the weakness may have stemmed from the fact that Thanksgiving this year came as late in November as possible, falling on the 28th. That left just two days in what is usually the start of the holiday shopping season before December. Contrast that with last year, when there were still eight days left in the month following Thanksgiving.

The seasonal-adjustment processes the Commerce Department uses factor in the sales effects of changes in the date of Thanksgiving and other holidays, but they can’t always keep up with changes in the retail environment. The last time Thanksgiving came so late was 2013, and the time before that was 2002.

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• Holiday Retail Sales Had a Lackluster November Start (Dec. 13)

Moreover, other data suggest the holiday shopping season has gotten off to a solid start. Credit card transactions analyzed by BofA Global Research suggest robust sales. A survey of Christmas tree retailers conducted by Evercore ISI showed tree sales—historically a good litmus test for shoppers’ holiday moods—were quite strong through last weekend.

So Friday’s data don’t count as a reason for despair. People might not be getting their children ponies, but they will still be buying them gifts this year.

Still, if consumer spending was exceptionally strong then November’s sales would probably have overwhelmed any calendar effects from the late Thanksgiving. A strong job market is giving people the wherewithal to spend, but as a group American consumers aren’t showing the willingness to overextend themselves that they did in the 1990s and then again in the years leading up to the financial crisis.

Christmases like we used to know are things of the past.

Write to Justin Lahart at justin.lahart@wsj.com

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