Consumer Attitudes & Behavior

San Jose, Calif. -- Despite some surprising showings over the holiday 2014 shopping season, a report by RetailNext said that overall traffic at brick-and-mortar stores dipped 7.1% for the Nov. 30-Jan. 3 shopping period.

The newly released Retail Performance Pulse also showed a 6.5% year-over-year decrease in sales.

Plano, Texas – It will not be a happy New Year for employees of some 40 J.C. Penney stores. The company on Thursday said that it plans to close approximately 40 stores, which represent less than 4% of its total store base, on or about April 4, 2015. The closures will affect about 2,250 employees.

Washington, D.C. – The holidays were at least moderately happy for in-store retailers. According to the Applied Predictive Technologies (APT) Index, in-store sales for the 2014 holiday shopping season were up 0.7% although sales decreased on Black Friday and Super Saturday weekends.

The number of transactions: actually declined 0.4%, but this was more than offset by a 1.1% increase in average purchase amount. Black Friday weekend retail sales were down -3.5%, while Super Saturday weekend retail sales were down -1.7%.

New York – Retail mall vacancies slightly rose in the fourth quarter of 2014, from 7.9% in the prior quarter to 8%. According to real estate research firm Reis Inc., the closure of 200-plus Sears stores during the year drove the increase, the first recorded since the third quarter of 2011.

Reston, Va. -- Retail e-commerce spending from desktop computers for the entire November-December 2014 holiday season totaled $53.3 billion, up 15% from the corresponding days last year.

Americans’ appetite for e-commerce grew again in 2014 with holiday sales slightly exceeding an optimistic forecast by digital measurement firm comScore.

Total desktop online sales for the entire November through December holiday season advanced 15 percent to $53.3 billion, comScore said. Cyber Monday retained its crown as the highest volume day with e-commerce spending of more than $2 billion.

Arlington, Va. – Consumers who may need some time to decide if they want to keep a purchase should consider applying for a Discover card. According to the 2015 Credit Card Extension Report from CardHub, Discover Cards received top overall score (98%) for their return extension program.

Coming in second and third were Chase Sapphire Preferred (88%), and a tie among Chase Freedom, Barclaycard Arrival and Barclaycard Arrival Plus (79%).

Chicago -- Nearly a quarter (21%) of consumers said that they are likely to return or exchange at least one of the presents that they received this holiday season. Additionally, male respondents expressed a greater interest in returning or exchanging gifts (30%) than female respondents (20%) by as much as 10%. That’s according to a survey by Retale, a location-based mobile platform connecting shoppers with their local retailers