Tariff fears and an extended sales season drove retail spending in November

The news: Strong ecommerce spending and an uptick in auto purchases drove November US retail sales past expectations—a welcome sign for retailers as they enter the final stretch of the holiday season.

• Retail sales increased 0.7% MoM, outpacing analysts’ expectations for a 0.5% rise. On a YoY basis, sales were up 3.8%, well ahead of inflation.
• Control group sales—which exclude food services, autos, building materials, and gas—grew 0.4% MoM, a considerable acceleration from October.

Zooming out, the picture is even rosier: Control sales for the last three months are up 5.6% YoY, a sign that consumer spending is broadly resilient as inflation eases and confidence recovers.

Behind the numbers: November’s solid retail spending is largely the result of two trends.

Shoppers took advantage of an extended promotional season. The Cyber Five became the Cyber Dozen as retailers like Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy rolled out Black Friday discounts well ahead of Thanksgiving weekend.

• Steep and widespread discounts propelled online sales up 14.6% YoY on Black Friday alone, per Mastercard SpendingPulse.
• As a result, nonstore sales—which includes ecommerce—grew 1.8% MoM and 9.8% YoY in November.

Consumers are pulling spending forward to avoid tariffs. Interest in big-ticket purchases is climbing—particularly among Democrats, who are more concerned that President-elect Donald Trump’s tariffs will reignite inflation.

• A record 1 in 4 Americans believes that now is a good time for major purchases due to concerns prices will rise in 2025, according to the University of Michigan’s December consumer survey. That’s up from 10% last month.
• Thirty percent of shoppers plan to buy more this holiday season. Of those, 39% cited the fear of rising prices due to tariffs as their primary reason why, per a CreditCards.com survey.
• One in 5 consumers (22%) are in the market for a large purchase, such as electronics, home appliances, furniture, and cars.

Those behaviors, along with higher incentives from many car brands and steep end-of-year discounts, led to November’s 2.6% MoM and 6.5% YoY spike in auto sales.

Our take: Regardless of whether consumers are “doom spending,” or becoming more optimistic about the state of the economy, the net result is the same—shoppers are ramping up their spending as the holiday season speeds to a close.

• 157.2 million consumers are expected to shop on Super Saturday, the last Saturday before Christmas, according to the National Retail Federation. That’s a nearly 11% increase YoY and just below 2022’s record.
• We expect holiday sales to grow 4.3% this year, as a broad array of deals and the desire to get ahead of tariffs drive shoppers to open their wallets.

Go further: Read our US Holiday Shopping 2024 report.

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