Yep. And don’t ignore the weather. For a large chunk of the shopping season 2/3rds of the US was buried under ice or snow. I went out to the mall on Christmas eve - around 2 PM - to do some last minute shopping. The mall was empty, but that’s not because of the lack of gifts (gauging from the number of UPS and Fedex trucks in front of the neighbor’s houses) - it was due to 12” of snow on the ground and simply impassible roads around here.
A little thaw today, and the mall was packed...
I agree 100%. This December has seen a huge spate of snowstorms in the northern USA east of the Rockies, and that has tremendously killed retail sales as people just can't even go OUT to buy things. It is small wonder why Amazon did such land-office business?