US Retail Sales Rise 7.2% In January: What You Need To Know

Despite the challenges of rising inflation and surging omicron variant rates, the year in shopping kicked off with a bang, with U.S. retail sales up 7.2% year-over-year in January and online sales up 10.4% from one year earlier, according to the latest SpendingPulse data report from Mastercard MA.

What Happened: Mastercard reported apparel sales were up 37.6% year-over-year last month, the strongest growth rate for January in since the company began publishing the SpendingPulse reports. This marked the 11th consecutive month of year-over-year growth for this retail sector.

Also on the rise were retail sales for luxury items (43.5%) and jewelry (19.8%). Restaurants also had a vibrant January, with 36.7% sales growth from one year ago and a 16.6% upswing compared to pre-pandemic levels two years ago.

But the most energetic shopping data was tracked to e-commerce, with sales levels up 110.1% from the pre-pandemic period. The only retail sales sector not tracked by SpendingPulse is automobile sales.

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Why It Happened: “Coming on the heels of the holidays, January typically marks a month of returns and exchanges,” said Steve Sadove, senior advisor for Mastercard and former CEO and chairman of Saks Incorporated.

“However, the strong growth across sectors reflects the optimism and eagerness for the year ahead. With nearly all sectors up, we see consumers returning to their shopping habits with a continued emphasis on digital.”

Still, shoppers will be facing higher prices across the board. This morning, the U.S. Department of Labor reported the Consumer Price Index rose 7.5% year-over-year in January, the highest growth rate since February 1982. Compared to December, the CPI was up 0.6%. Core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, was up 6% in January.

Photo: Gonghuimin468/Pixabay.