"E-commerce sales hit a record high this year with more people doing their holiday shopping online," said Steve Sadove, senior advisor for Mastercard and former CEO and Chairman of Saks Incorporated. Online sales made up 14.6 percent of total retail, the data showed.
"Due to a later than usual Thanksgiving holiday, we saw retailers offering omnichannel sales earlier in the season, meeting consumers' demand for the best deals across all channels and devices," Sadove said in a statement released Thursday.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Twitter, "2019 holiday retail sales were up 3.4 percent from last year, the biggest number in U.S. history. Congratulations America!"
Despite solid overall growth, total apparel saw a modest gain of 1 percent growth year over year. The category also experienced stronger than expected e-commerce growth, up 17 percent compared to 2018.
Department stores saw overall sales decline 1.8 percent and online sales growth of 6.9 percent, emphasizing the importance of omnichannel offerings, said the report, which details holiday shopping from Nov. 1 through Dec. 24, the Christmas Eve.
In mid December, the National Retail Federation forecast U.S. holiday retail sales from holiday seasons, defined as Nov. 1 through Dec. 31, to increase between 3.8 percent and 4.2 percent, totaling between 727.9 billion dollars and 730.7 billion dollars.
According to an estimation from the web analytics tool Adobe Analytics, shoppers are expected to spend 143.8 billion dollars online, up by 14.1 percent from last year.
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