Accenture Predicts 11% Holiday Sales Increase

By Justina Huddleston
October 2013

While ShopperTrack predicted a 2.4 percent increase in sales this holiday season, and the NRF a 3.9 percent increase, Accenture Retail says that holiday shoppers plan on spending 11% more this year than last.

Accenture's forecast is in direct conflict with the other predictions. In fact, Shopper Track is predicting the slowest holiday sales growth since 2010.

Accenture's report states that while in 2012 year shoppers spent an average of $582 on holiday gifts, this year they plan on shelling out around $646. This would be good news for retailers, as the past few holiday seasons have seen only modest sales gains (less than 4% each year).

Retailing Today points out that the timing of Thanksgiving this year means that there will be 6 less shopping days between Black Friday and Christmas, which could end up affecting retail sales. However, 41% of consumers surveyed said that they will be holiday shopping on Thanksgiving Day itself, so retailers may not need to worried about the lost time.