FirstData: Holiday spend up 3.2%; Christmas Eve busiest spending day

New York -- Retail spending growth for the holiday period totaled 3.2%, and Christmas Eve, not Black Friday, was the busiest spending day of the year. Those are just two of the findings in the First Data SpendTrend annual holiday wrap-up.



The report, which includes only card-based forms of payment, is based on analysis of over 400,000 retail merchant locations across the nation, from Nov. 1, 2014 through Jan. 4, 2015, and had processing activity with First Data for the same period during the previous year.



Here are some key findings of the First Data report:



• Minnesota had the highest retail dollar volume growth out of all 50 states at 12.88%, followed by Oregon at 7.4% and Missouri at 7.15%.



• During the holiday period, nine out of the ten top spending days occurred in December. In absolute dollars, the top spending day was Christmas Eve with Dec. 23 a close second.



• Retail foot-traffic was strongest on Dec. 21, the Sunday before Christmas, with second most transactions occurring on Christmas Eve.



• Overall retail average ticket during the holiday period (Nov. 1-Jan. 4) was $72.55.



• There was a spike in prepaid card redemptions on Dec. 26.



• All retail industries, with the exception of electronics & appliances, experienced positive growth during the holiday shopping period. Two categories did particularly well — building material & garden equipment/supply stores and health & personal stores had the highest spending growth of 8.2% and 5.7%, respectively.



Additionally, general merchandise stores had a healthy growth of 4.4%. The category consistently saw positive growth all year, the report noted.