Not to indulge too much in insider talk, but I noted with interest a month or more ago that LaMarotte was suddenly getting hits on a post made December 20 of last year and titled “Personal Consumption: Christmas Context” (here). That post didn’t have anywhere near as many hits then as it has had since mid-August or thereabouts. But that makes a lot of sense. The retailer begins preparing for Christmas when the rest of us are still going to the pool. That post was one of two on the subject of Christmas commerce; the other one is here. This post will update the second one. It showed changes in December retail sales from 1992 to 2008. 2008 was very bad for our merchants. Herewith an update to the chart I showed then:
The data for this chart are derived from here; data on that table are in millions of dollars and exclude food services. The graphic above adds 2009 results to the series. Retail sales rebounded in 2009, but the long-term downward trend, December to December, continued. In effect the retail sector lost $41.9 billion in retail sales 2008 over 2007; the sector re-gained $18.4 billion 2009 over 2008—thus still showed a net loss in sales revenues of $23.4 billion.
In the first referenced post above I offered at least a guess as to why December-to-December retail sales were trending down. The reason I offered is that expenditures on products (durable and nondurable) were shrinking in comparison to expenditures on services across the economy. Giving people tangible objects seems to be declining right along with the broader focus on ever more services—many of which are subscriptions to all manner of communications or entertainment feeds.
I’ll revisit this subject again after December 2010 has come and gone and the Census has posted the new score. But, from a seat in early October, it doesn’t look too good in prospect. Even if the percent change is positive, it will be low. And 2010 might echo 2008 by dipping into negative territory again.
