For almost 70 years, retailers and industry analysts have relied on the U.S. Census Bureau’s Advanced Monthly Retail Trade Survey to gauge consumer spending in retail. While this data has been useful over the years, newer data sources have emerged that capture anonymized consumer transactions and offer more timely, accurate, granular and frequent data than surveys.
As the trade association representing all of retail, NRF made the decision to add a new measure to the mix to help stakeholders better tell the story of the modern retail industry and the consumers who drive it.
To embrace this new future, in November we launched the CNBC/NRF Retail Monitor, powered by Affinity Solutions, to offer a new monthly measure of retail sales. Created in collaboration with CNBC, NRF and Affinity Solutions, the Retail Monitor leverages Affinity Solutions’ comprehensive data from more than 140 million credit and debit cards that tracks nearly 9 billion transactions, representing over $500 billion dollars in annual spending, to measure the monthly and annual change in U.S. retail sales.
The Retail Monitor is highly correlated with the U.S. Census Bureau’s revised retail sales numbers and can deliver near real-time views of retail sales while also bypassing the revision process that is required for survey-based tools. All the information produced by Affinity Solutions is anonymized and aggregated and does not include any personal identifiable information of an individual consumer.
This new data allows us to share more timely insights into key shopping events throughout the entire year and release key spending data about a week before government data. Going forward we hope to expand the Retail Monitor to include key demographic data like income and age to further increase granularity.
Retail Monitor data from December, announced this morning, shows that total retail sales, excluding automobiles and gasoline, were up 0.44% seasonally adjusted month over month and up 3.07% unadjusted year over year in December.
Core retail sales — which excludes restaurants in addition to autos and gas — showed increases of 0.19% month over month and 2.4% year over year in December. Total retail sales for all of 2023 were up 5.32% over 2022 and core retail sales were up 4.46%.
The data from December shows that consumers maintained their ability to spend throughout 2023 and especially during the holiday season, continuing to defy expectations for a more widespread slowdown. Consumers were buoyed by a strong labor market and gains in real earnings despite continuing inflation and rising interest rates.
Looking ahead to 2024, we expect retail sales will continue to grow at a more moderate pace that closer aligns with historical averages. We look forward to announcing our annual forecast in March.