Despite the ups and downs of retail sales, brick-and-mortar establishments had their best overall year in awhile in 2017.
Results haven’t been this good since 2014, according to the Wall Street Journal, with sales rising for fourth month in a row in December. Of course it’s practically a given that online sales rose more than in-store sales, and some retailers saw dips instead of hills, most notably department stores, but building materials stores saw an increase of 1.2 percent.
“Definitely the consumers are in a good mood. The confidence is up. We’ve seen the labor market has been rather solid,” S&P Global economist Satyam Panday told the Journal. “These are some positives going into 2018.”
In fact, the 2017 holiday season was the most profitable in sales since 2010 according to data collected by the National Retail Federation. [WSJ] — Erin Hudson