WASHINGTON (MaceNews) – The week ahead has a jammed schedule of economic data after Monday’s President’s Day federal holiday hiatus and most closely watched will be the report on January retail sales.
While sales through December were 2.9% ahead of a year earlier, it’s the current pace that is key for an assessment of first quarter growth. December alone was a surprising reverse, a 0,7% decline which took some of the shine off an otherwise strong fourth quarter. Even with December’s decline, October through December saw a 4% increase versus the same period in 2019.
Aside from the overall last year’s overall growth of retail sales, a total of $6.3 trillion, the portion that was transacted online was nothing short of spectacular. The government lists “non store” retail’s total at $971.6 billion, 22.1% more than the pre-pandemic 2019.
Some private analysts say this is vastly understated, E-commerce actually represented 101% of the total sector’s growth last year, according to the Digital Commerce 360 firm that tracks retail, up a record 44%., triple the previous year. The firm said this means sale through all other channels – stores, catalogs and call centers – declined, the first time ever that E-commerce accounted for all of the retail sector’s gains.
Of all that online total of transactions, the firm added, 31.4% originated with Amazon. This was a decline from the company’s 43,8% share in 2019. “it’s clear that the pandemic pushed many more consumers online – and they didn’t all shop on Amazon.” The report said. “At least some are shopping on other large online retail sites, such as Walmart, Best Buy, Target and Kroger – all top 20 retailers are on track to grow online sales more than 85% in fiscal 2020, according to Digital Commerce 360 estimates.”
So whatever January’s retail sales report shows, it will illustrate the vast changes underway of consumer preferences in how merchandise is purchased, a tectonic shift that may not slow down once the pandemic yields to vaccines. To the extent the pandemic has imposed a huge disadvantage on brick and mortar outlets, that at some point may be restored to a large extent even considering outlets permanently shuttered, raising the question of whether online’s share will diminish.
Also in the upcoming week, January housing starts, existing home sales and the Producer Price Index, among all the data points listed below.
UPCOMING ECONOMIC DATA
Monday, Feb 15 – Federal holiday, no US data
Tuesday, Feb 16 – 8:30a ET – NYFed’s Empire State mfg survey
Tuesday, Feb 16 – 8:55a – Redbook weekly retail same-store sales
Tuesday, Feb 16 – 4p – TICS, Treasury Int’l Capital flows
Wednesday, Feb 17 – 7a – US MBA weekly mortgage applications
Wednesday, Feb 17 – 8:30a – Jan retail sales
Wednesday, Feb 17 – 8:30a – US Jan PPI
Wednesday, Feb 17 – 9:15a – US Jan industrial production
Wednesday, Feb 17 – 10:00a – US business inventories
Wednesday, Feb 17 – 10:00a – US NAHB Feb Housing Market Index
Wednesday, Feb 17 – 1:30p – US EIA oil stocks
Wednesday, Feb 17 – 2p – FOMC Minutes
Thursday, Feb 18 – 8:30a – US Jan Housing Starts
Thursday, Feb 18 – 8:30a – US weekly initial jobless benefit claims
Friday, Feb 19 – 10:00a – US NAR Jan existing home sales
Friday, Feb 19 – 1p – Baker-Hughes rig count
Separately, the outlook from Extract Analytics:
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Contact this reporter: denny@macenews.com.
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