Facteus Launches New Consumer Spending Report – Christmas and COVID: 2020 Holiday Spending and Beyond
Report developed from analysis of near real-time data from millions of consumer financial transactions
Facteus, the leading provider of actionable insights from financial data, today published a new consumer spending report analyzing the 2020 holiday season spending trends during the COVID pandemic and its impacts on the future of retail. The report, titled, “Christmas and COVID: Holiday Spending and Beyond,” provides a critical lens into how the pandemic upended retailers’ merchandising and promotional strategies in 2020 and offers clarity around which changes are likely to endure when the new retail order is restored.
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“With all of the uncertainty that 2020 held, there is a lot we can learn from the transactional consumer spending data and how that will shape the future of retail”
The report is based on transactional data from millions of consumer transactions, covering more than 1,600 companies and 430 publicly traded stock tickers, sourced directly from financial institutions, fintechs, and payments companies. Facteus transaction data incorporates credit and debit card purchases, and transactions through payroll and corporate-expense accounts.
Key findings from the report include:
- Changes to Traditional Milestone Retail Shopping Days: With in-person shopping on Black Friday strongly discouraged and Amazon Prime Days shifted to October, the holiday shopping season began earlier than ever in 2020. Looking across the weekly spending figures of bellwether names in major categories, as well as big holiday shopping events like Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Super Saturday (marking the last weekend before Christmas), certainly didn’t hurt spending. At the same time, spending during these weeks didn’t show a noticeable pop in most instances, either.
- Accelerated Shift to Digital: The data shows that the pandemic truly did accelerate online purchases. Across every category, retailers saw significant declines for in-store traffic. The drop-off was particularly pronounced in the “general retail category,” which saw Black Friday spending chopped in half in 2020, but it was also evident in the apparel and video game categories.
- New Normal vs. Extraordinary: 2020 was a unique year where many variables helped to influence spending behaviors, not the least of which was the stimulus package earlier in the pandemic, pronounced shifts in home-buying activity, and restrictions on in-store shopping. As extraordinary as the last 12 months have been, once the populace can resume more traditional routines, shopping patterns, too, will normalize.
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“With all of the uncertainty that 2020 held, there is a lot we can learn from the transactional consumer spending data and how that will shape the future of retail,” said Chris Marsh, CEO of Facteus. “Our transactional data can act as a window into economic activity and indicate how traditional spending patterns changed over previous years, which initiatives from retailers had the biggest impact, and what trends are likely to endure long past the pandemic.”
Business and investment analysts using Facteus data can gain a granular understanding of the drivers behind consumer behavior and business trends at the industry level (retail, entertainment, hospitality, etc.) or at the specific company level. The transactional data offers a comprehensive, real-time perspective into evolving customer behaviors, such as where consumers are shopping, how much they are spending at specific merchants, and through which point of sale (in-person or online). This granular view can provide investors and analysts an informational edge when making investment decisions, sizing markets, or developing new products.
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