NPD Reports Holiday Sales Falling Short

Dollar sales for the first four weeks of the 2016 holiday shopping season fell 3 percent compared to the 2015 season, according to the NPD Group’s weekly point-of-sale results.

April 6, 2018

Toys and prestige fragrance were the only industries to outperform 2015 for the holiday week.

In addition, dollar sales in the fourth week of November, which included Thanksgiving and Black Friday, were 1 percent lower than the fourth week of November 2015.

However, both toys and prestige fragrances beat their fourth week 2015 dollar sales by 3 percent and were the only industries to outperform last year for the week and cumulatively over the first four weeks of the season. Additionally, toys more than doubled their sales from the prior week.

Other top-performing categories for the fourth week of November 2016 include PCs (notebooks), home automation, sports toys, games/puzzles and streaming audio speakers.

“Retailers of all types set out to lure consumers with an increase in promotions, and it worked…for a few categories, but not for everything. Less conventional holiday winners beat out anticipated headliners,

like last year’s wearable fitness tracker success story. But, big TVs are also making their mark on the 2016 holiday season, and a handful of other categories are gaining momentum,” says Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst, NPD Group. “While the pace picked up over Thanksgiving Week, overall the season is still lagging a bit and what follows is the post-Black Friday lull. The challenge facing retailers now is to make the new, more spread-out holiday shopping season work to their advantage, and keep the hottest items in stock as consumers shop with the expectation of continued deals galore.”