U.S. holiday retail 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. Mastercard SpendingPulse, which tracks all kinds of payments including cash and debit cards, reported Sunday that holiday sales rose 8.5 percent from a year earlier. Mastercard SpendingPulse had expected an 8.8 percent increase. The results, which covered Nov. 1 through Dec. 24, were fueled by purchases of clothing and jewelry. Holiday sales were up 10.7 percent compared with the pre-pandemic 2019 holiday period. By category, clothing rose 47 percent, jewelry 32 percent, electronics 16 percent. Online sales were up 11 percent from a year ago and 61 percent from 2019. Department stores registered a 21 percent increase over 2020. After Omicron hit, some U.S. consumers stayed home and shifted their spending to e-commerce — but sales stayed strong. “I feel really good about how the season played out,” said Steve Sadove, senior adviser to Mastercard and former CEO of Saks Inc. “When people feel a little bit uncomfortable, you’ll see a little bit of a pickup in online and a little bit of a slowdown in store performance.” A broader picture will be revealed next month when the U.S. National Retail Federation, the largest U.S. retail trade group, comes out with its combined two-month results in mid-January. The results will be based on an analysis of the November and December sales figures from the Commerce Department. Analysts will also be dissecting the fourth-quarter financial results from different retailers that are slated to be released in February. Overall, analysts had expected a strong holiday season, fueled by early shopping that started back in October in anticipation of a product shortage. U.S. consumers were also determined to celebrate the holidays after a muted one a year ago. Still, November saw a slowdown in retail sales, in part because of the early shopping. And Omicron, which has fast become the dominant version of the virus in the United States, has now spoiled holiday plans for many Americans who have had to cancel gatherings last minute. The National Retail Federation (NRF) said early in December that holiday sales were on track to beat its already record-breaking forecasts for an increase of 8.5 percent to 10.5 percent compared with the year-ago period. Holiday sales increased 8.2 percent in 2020 when shoppers, locked down during the early part of the pandemic, splurged on pajamas and home goods, mostly online. The group expects that online and other non-store sales, which are included in the total, will increase between 11 percent and 15 percent. The numbers exclude automobile dealers, gasoline stations and restaurants. Holiday sales have averaged gains of 4.4 percent over the past five years, according to the group. The update from the NRF was delivered in early December, right before Omicron became a bigger threat in the United States and started to disrupt businesses from Broadway theaters to restaurants. But overall store traffic hasn’t taken a plunge, though some stores are reporting dips in big city locations. For the week that ended Dec. 18, store traffic was up nearly 20 percent from a year earlier, though down 23 percent from the same week in the pre-pandemic year of 2019, according to Sensormatic Solutions. (SD-Agencies) | 