The Zhitong Finance App learned that according to statistics from the Adobe data platform, the scale of US consumer spending continues to expand under the impetus of extensive discount activities, completely shattering the pessimistic expectations that consumer spending will decline during the 2024 holiday shopping season predicted by many Wall Street investment institutions in November. According to the latest statistics from Adobe, e-commerce based consumer spending in the US unexpectedly grew 9% during the 2024 holiday shopping season, reaching a record $241 billion.

The so-called “holiday period” (holiday period) in Western countries refers to the last two months of each year, that is, November and December. Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday, and Christmas are all in this period. Therefore, this timeline covers many very important shopping holidays and large-scale retail promotions. It is the most critical sales period of the year for US e-commerce and retail giants such as Walmart and Target, and is also the most critical period for driving US GDP growth. In the US GDP estimation system, 70%-80% of segmented statistical items are closely related to consumer spending.

According to Adobe statistics, in the last two months of 2024, more than half of online spending was spent on buying electronic products, clothing, and household goods. In comparison, spending on various groceries and cosmetics had the highest year-on-year growth rate.

“Significant discounts during the 2024 holiday shopping season attracted increasingly price-sensitive consumers,” the Adobe analytics team said. The company added that the sales volume of the product was directly proportional to the discount margin. Adobe said that overall, total online sales during the US record holiday shopping season were driven by increased demand rather than price increases, which is good news for the US economy.

Although the rise in US prices has slowed since 2024, it was still on an upward trend at the time, and under the heavy pressure of continuing high interest rates since 2022, some low-income American consumers have drastically cut expenses and prioritized essential consumer goods such as food and drinking water. The cumulative rise in prices over the years has also brought weak demand to many retailers in the US, especially those focusing on non-essential consumer goods.

Despite this, early statistics showed that online sales during Black Friday and the Christmas holidays still showed strong overall US consumer spending. The Atlanta Federal Reserve's GDP NOW forecast model currently predicts that under the stimulus of still strong consumer spending, the US GDP annualized quarterly rate for the fourth quarter of 2024 is expected to grow by 2.4%, slightly lower than the growth rate of the previous quarter.

Although the growth rate of the US economy has slowed in the past few years, it has unexpectedly maintained a “growth model that exceeds expectations,” and 2024 is no exception. Although long-term high US borrowing costs have curtailed the development of housing and manufacturing, and recruitment activities have begun to slow down, the US economy is infinitely close to the US economy that Federal Reserve officials have in mind with strong consumer spending data.”soft landing”.

Despite uncertainty about the presidential election, continued high US benchmark interest rates, and significant signs of cooling in the labor market, the published 2024 US economic growth data is still strong, exceeding all economists' expectations for the US economy at the end of 2023, thanks to extremely strong consumer spending levels. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecast, the US will become the developed country with the best economic performance in the Group of Seven (G7) in 2024.

The US economy continued to exceed economists' expectations in 2024. The answer lies in strong American consumers. Despite the slow pace of recruitment in the labor market, US wage growth continues to exceed the rate of inflation, and household wealth has followed the US stock market, which has set new records with record highs, which has supported the continued strong expansion of US household spending.

Undoubtedly, consumer spending in the US, which has continued to be strong during the Federal Reserve's long period of high interest rates, is increasingly being driven by high-net-worth groups, who are enjoying the so-called wealth accumulation effects brought about by housing prices and the sharp rise in the US stock market. But at the same time, many low-income consumers are relying on credit cards and other loans to support their everyday expenses, and some of them are even showing significant signs of financial pressure from rising default and delinquency rates.