Spending returns

A spending study linked to MasterCard payments shows year-over-year growth in consumer spending for the first two months of 2010.

SpendingPulse reports on national retail and service sales and is based on aggregate sales activity in the MasterCard payments network, coupled with survey-based estimates for certain other payment forms, such as cash and check, according to SpendingPulse.

“Retailers seem not to have needed extreme discounting to drive traffic to their stores,” Michael McNamara, vice president, Rresearch and analysis for SpendingPulse, said in a statement. “This may have been due to a much tighter inventory situation than what we saw last year.”

SPENDINGPULSE DETAILS
• Most retail sectors showed year-over-year growth, following a largely positive January. While severe snowstorms hurt apparel sales in the Mid-Atlantic, Northeast and North Central regions, easy year-over-year comparisons helped produce positive results in other sectors.

• Particularly strong results were posted in eCommerce, with 16.7% year-over-year growth. McNamara noted that while the channel may have benefited from the severe weather, it was the seventh straight month of double-digit growth.

• According to the SpendingPulse Price Index, which tracks average ticket size and can be impacted by discounting or change in product mix, the average price of an online transaction dropped 3.7% compared to last year.

• Luxury ex-jewelry sales were up 15.2% over February of 2009, following a gain in December of 5.5% and again in January of 8.1%.

• Consumer Electronics, following an increase of 0.4% in January, was also again up by 5.8% year-over-year in February, the sixth consecutive monthly increase.

• After January’s increase of 0.6%, U.S. Apparel sales fell 1.8% in February 2010 on a year-over-year basis as severe winter weather depressed sales in many areas of the country.