As Retailers Offered Holiday Discounts, Shoppers Showed Up

Heading into the holiday shopping season this year, retailers said they expected consumers to be more discerning — motivated by deals rather than a once-a-year gift splurge.To keep them spending, companies as varied as electronics stores and beauty brands said they would be pushing promotions.The bargains seem to have worked.Total spending for the holiday period, from Nov.

1 through Dec.24, rose 3.8 percent, according to data released on Thursday by Mastercard SpendingPulse, which measures in-store and online retail sales across all forms of payment.

That’s above Mastercard SpendingPulse’s estimate of 3.2 percent for this year and more than last year, when growth was 3.1 percent.Online sales stood out, rising 6.7 percent compared with a gain of about 2.9 percent for in-store sales.The data is not adjusted for inflation.Spending is a perennial measure of consumer health: Inflation, nervousness about the job market and even a contentious outcome to the presidential election each could have hampered sales.

But after a year of restraining themselves, shoppers instead decided to take advantage of the discounts.The last five days of the holiday season accounted for 10 percent of all holiday spending, the Mastercard SpendingPulse data showed.“The holiday season is coming in pretty healthy because that’s the period of time that people have to concentrate their spending,” said Michelle Meyer, chief economist at the Mastercard Economics Institute.

“They know that promotions are heavy.They want to gift for others and for themselves.

So the big question will be, what happens next?”It’s not unusual for people to expect deals during the holidays, but this year’s sales may have marked a turning point for both consumers and retailers.After years of gleefully raising prices, retailers seemed to acknowledge that they needed to aggressively discount to lure inflation-weary shoppers.

What remains to be seen is if the spending will continue without the discount...