Day 24 - Preparing for 2023's Massive Predicted Growth in the Retail Sector
We take a look at the National Retail Federation's Annual Retail Sales Forecast to discuss the industry's days ahead
This is part 24 of a 120 day series on validating our product ListIt, which connects local shoppers with local stores for pickup. You can see the whole series here, or read yesterday’s article here.
Today the National Retail Federation, an industry group with headquarters in Washington DC that meets to discuss and analyze trends in the retail sector had their annual Retail Sales Forecast which stated that retail is expected to grow this year from between 4% and 6% to approximately $5.2 trillion dollars. This forecast is down notably from last year’s growth of 7% and down markedly from 2021’s Covid bump of 14.4%.
While lower growth numbers aren’t the most lovely thing to hear, it’s still growth, and there are two things to keep in mind for the let’s say 5% number they’re predicting. For one, that’s much larger than the Congressional Budget Office’s prediction of near zero percent growth for this year, and still more than triple one recent Federal Reserve Bank forecast for US GDP growth of 1.3%.
The expected growth highlights the fact that consumer spending is still high in the US and independent as well as online retailers are where people turn when they need to do their shopping. This is good news for the sector of the economy which employs 54 million Americans, or one in every four people.
Another interesting statistic from the forecast is that while there have been some spikes in online shopping since COVID, and there continue to be spikes in online retail sales during each Covid wave (or holiday), after those events are over shoppers go back to in-store shopping. This means that while the share of retail from e-commerce is growing slowly over time, the online shopping Covid bump of 2020-2021 did not result in a permanent change in behavior.
Another interesting data point to note is that while restaurants aren’t a major part of ListIt’s platform, restaurant online sales have significantly tapered off since 2020 revealing a significant and noticeable preference for dining in-person when the law and Covid policy permits it.
Overall, the NRF forecast is major positive news for independent retailers, who still make up the heart of where people like to visit and shop from in the US. It’s great news that despite strong negative economic headwinds this industry will continue to grow.
ListIt is a free app that allows retailers to sell to local shoppers as easily as posting to Instagram. Like it? Dislike it? Simply have questions? Reach out to me directly at james@listit.one and be sure to check out our website ListIt.one for updates and the beta product sign-up- the MVP drops next week!