Small businesses had a merry December, as shoppers wrapped up their holiday shopping.

American consumers wrapped up the year in a spending mood, shopping for all sorts of merchandise from furniture to clothing, and eating out at restaurants, according to the latest government snapshot.

The holiday shopping season is underway, and this year small businesses have less time to capitalize on the busy shopping period.

The largest retail trade group in the United States says it expects consumers to spend more during the upcoming holiday season but the growth in sales to be slower than last year due to concerns over persistent inflation and prices.

The National Retail Federation is urging the Biden administration to intervene in a labor strike affecting U.S. East and Gulf Coast container ports, which has disrupted operations since the master contract between the International Longshoremen’s Association and the United States Maritime Alliance expired on September 30.

The National Retail Federation says Houston is on the top five list for cities with significant organized retail crime.

The largest U.S. retail trade group is forecasting that the country's retail sales will increase anywhere between 2.5% and 3.5% this year.

Mastercard SpendingPulse said Tuesday that holiday sales rose this year.

The National Retail Federation has revised a report released in April that pulls back the claim that organized retail crime accounts for nearly half of overall industry shrink, which measures overall loss in inventory, including theft.

Consumers are scouring the internet for online deals as they begin to cap off the five-day post-Thanksgiving shopping bonanza with Cyber Monday.

The National Retail Federation, the nation’s largest retail trade group, expects shoppers will spend more this year than last year, but their spending pace will slow given all the economic uncertainty.

These are the estimates from the National Retail Federation.

Here’s a synopsis of both the historical elements of Easter that people might not know about, and the modern financial windfall Easter is expected to be in 2022.

Sales growth for the holiday 2022 season slowed more than expected from its blistering pace a year ago as higher borrowing costs and higher inflation made shoppers pull back, according to the nation’s largest retail trade group.

Americans cut back on spending in December, the second consecutive month they’ve done so, underscoring how inflation and the rising cost of using credit cards slowed consumer activity over the crucial holiday shopping season.

Americans overlooked shortages, spiking prices and uncertainty over the omicron variant to break spending records during the critical holiday shopping season.

Holiday sales rose at the fastest pace in 17 years, even as shoppers grappled with higher prices, product shortages and a raging new COVID-19 variant in the last few weeks of the season, according to one spending measure.

The National Retail Federation expects that holiday sales gain could shatter last year’s record-breaking season even as a snarled global supply chain slows the flow of goods and results in higher prices for broad range of items.

Whether it’s shortages that are driving up prices of certain items or enthusiasm for the day in general, one thing is clear: It looks like there will be a lot of money spent on Halloween this year.

Consumer spending on Halloween-related items is expected to reach an all-time high of $10.14 billion, up from $8.05 billion in 2020, according to the National Retail Federation.

The January spending increase followed two straight monthly spending drops that had raised concerns that consumers, who power most of the economy, were hunkered down, too anxious to travel, shop and spend. Consumers saved a significant chunk of their income last month: The personal savings rate jumped to 20.5% from 13.4% in December. It was the highest savings rate since May of last year in the aftermath of pandemic's eruption. AdGregory Daco, chief economist at Oxford Economics, said he thinks the high savings rate, combined with pent-up consumer demand and further federal aid, will lift economic growth this year to 7%. “The combination of a healthier economy and more government stimulus should generate a strong rebound by the middle of the year.”

(AP Photo/John Raoux)NEW YORK – Retail sales fell for a third straight month as a surge in virus cases kept people away from stores during the critical holiday shopping season. The U.S. Commerce Department said retail sales fell a seasonally adjusted 0.7% in December from the month before. Department store chain Nordstrom, lingerie seller Victoria’s Secret and clothing retailer Urban Outfitters all said sales fell during the holidays. The Commerce Department said shoppers cut back on spending at electronic and department stores. At clothing stores, sales rose 2.4% after dropping 16% for the year.

NEW YORK – The National Retail Federation, the nation's largest retail trade group, expects that holiday sales could actually exceed growth seen in prior seasons, despite all the uncertainty surrounding the pandemic. Holiday sales have averaged gains of 3.5% over the past five years. Not included in total sales figure are sales from restaurants, gas stations and auto dealers. Still, the NRF cited that the aggregate retail sales have seen a V-shaped recovery, growing both month-over-month and year-over-year each month since June. For the first ten months of this year, retail sales rose 6.4% compared with the first 10 months of 2019.