Holiday retail sales push toward $1 trillion as channels shift

Holiday spending is advancing on a cautious but resilient footing, with U.S. retail sales on track to surpass the trillion dollar threshold even as consumers trade down, hunt promotions more aggressively, and re-time purchases across the season. Within that backdrop, channel mix, payments innovation, selective expansion, regulatory scrutiny, and widening performance dispersion are now the defining fault lines senior leaders must track daily. At a glance: The latest national forecast calls for U.S. holiday retail sales for November and December to grow in the low single digits and, for the fir