Retail groups predict robust sales this holiday shopping season

NEW YORK — The National Retail Federation, the nation’s largest retail trade group, says it expects sales in November and December to rise between 4.3 percent and 4.8 percent to $717.45 billion to $720.89 billion as shoppers continue to be in a spending mood in a stronger economy.

The sales growth marks a drop from last year’s 5.3 percent, which was the largest gain since 2010 when it was 5.2 percent. But the figure is still healthy and is the latest indication that the retail industry is far from an apocalypse that some feared only a year ago.

While stores like Sears Holdings Inc. and J.C. Penney are struggling, plenty of others are seeing robust sales helped by their own reinvention efforts and a solid economic backdrop. The unemployment rate is near a 50-year low and the number of job openings is exceeding the number of unemployed. And consumer confidence shot up to an 18-year high in September, according to the Conference Board.

Retailers are also working hard to reinvent their businesses by doing things such as speeding up their deliveries and remodeling their stores as they try to better compete with online leader Amazon.

Retailers are also monitoring the impact on tariffs that have been slapped on a variety of different goods imported from China, although holiday merchandise will likely not be affected because they’re already in U.S. warehouses. Any price increases are expected to come starting in early 2019.

Steve Barr, consumer markets leader at PwC, said he believes that a broad swath of retailers will have a solid holiday season.

“I see very little in the way of risks for 2018 with the exception of something that is uncontrollable like a geopolitical event or bad weather,” he added.