First Data reports consumer spending was up in December 2011 compared to the previous year. The company released its “SpendTrend” analysis which tracks credit, signature debit, PIN Debit, EBT Card and electronic check spending at same-store merchants year over year. In the report, the company states that its merchants saw a 6.9% sales growth in holiday spending despite a slight decline in average ticket size. First Data believes that low interest rates for car loans diverted a measurable amount of spending to auto sales. However, the company notes that auto sale spending is not captured in its report.
The data suggests that merchants resorted to deep discounting in order to attract sales and that consumers responded favorably. “Consumer willingness to spend in December was based largely on the ability to find bargains and merchants utilized steep discounting to drive traffic,” said Silvio Tavares, SVP and division manager of First Data Global Information and Analytics Solutions, which publishes SpendTrend. The report also shows that spending in December was higher than in November.
The largest growth in payment method came in the form of PIN Debit with Signature Debit just behind. This suggests that a majority of consumers were choosing to pay with available cash rather than financing the purchases on credit cards. Not surprisingly, the use of consumer checks saw a healthy drop.
First Data is one of the largest credit card processors in the world and processes nearly one of every four card transactions in the United States. You can learn more about the company on our First Data Review.
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