US shops hoping for bumper holiday season

As stores roll out the offers and preen displays ahead of “Black Friday” – the start of the US holiday shopping season, there are high hopes for a bumper sales this year.

After a brutal few years for retailers, experts are predicting that maybe this year will be better than the last, with increased sales, albeit at levels still far off their 2007 peak.

“This holiday season presents a consumer with a little more spending power than last year,” said Scott Krugman of the National Retail Federation pointing to the ongoing economic recovery.

The federation expects this season’s sales to rise 2.3 per cent from last year, with 138 million Americans expected to raid the stores over the coming weekend.

The starting gun for the rush will come on Friday – the day after tomorrow’s Thanksgiving holiday – when Americans rummage through racks and bins laden with heavily discounted goods.

“The consumer is ready to shop as long as retailers meet their expectations in terms of price,” Mr Krugman said during a conference call organised by Dow Jones Indexes.

Electronic good are expected to show the sharpest rise in sales, as tablets and laptops are first on consumers’ shopping lists, according to a survey conducted by Retrevo.com.

The average household spend this season was set to rise from $690 from $680 last year, the NRF said.

Online shopping is also expected to boost sales.

Technology research firm Forrester forecast that online retail sales will this year grow 16 per cent from last year to $51.7 billion as next “Cyber Monday” continues to grow.

“For now at least, we are seeing some decent growth numbers and while levels are not yet back to 2007,” credit card companyMasterCard said in a report.

“The year-over-year growth stats are helping to get the holiday season off to an encouraging start.”