Holiday shopping for 2021 season could exceed forecasts, major retail group say

The 2021 holiday shopping season may exceed economic forecasts and finish with a bang, a major retail group claimed on Friday.

Spending this year "appears to be on track to exceed the National Retail Federation's forecast," the NRF said in a press release.

The encouraging news comes "despite supply chain disruptions, inflation and challenges like the new COVID-19 omicron variant," the group noted. 

The NRF in its December Monthly Economic Review said that "holiday retail sales during November and December could now grow as much as 11.5 percent over the same period in 2020." 

Those numbers would "exceed NRF’s forecast that holiday sales would be up between 8.5 percent and 10.5 percent," the group said.