5 big SC cities see retail sales plummet in 2022 while one bucks the trend. Who did the worst?
Retail sales dropped in South Carolina’s five largest cities year over year, while one of its tourist beach spots saw gains, credit and debit card data shows.
Myrtle Beach saw a boost in retail sales from March to November, year over year, according to SafeGraph, an online company that builds and maintains data sets. Charleston, Columbia, Mount Pleasant, North Charleston and Rock Hill — the biggest cities by population in the state — all had drops in sales to varying degrees. The state’s changes in retail spending comes as the U.S. saw a slump in sales overall in November following high inflation, data shows.
According to SafeGraph’s latest data, viewable in the graph below, Myrtle Beach had approximately $50,381,785 in retail sales between March and November of 2022 — a $1,465,152 jump over the same period last year. SafeGraph uses a sample of credit and debit card transactions to compile his data.
Of the five largest cities in South Carolina, Columbia had the most retail sales in 2022 with $53,000,106, but also the biggest decline, with a loss of $12,589,325, year over year.
The drop in spending has not been a shock to analysts.
Retail spending across the U.S. was down 8% in November compared to the previous year, according to the research company, NPD Group.
The National Retail Federation recently forecasted tempered U.S. holiday sales growth of around 8% between November and December over the previous year. Holiday sales last year grew by a much larger 13.5% over 2020.
Relentless inflation over the past year has dampened consumer spending somewhat over the past year. However, there were recent signs of relief on the way, with the latest figures showing inflation dropped to 7.1% in November, down from 7.7% in October.
Prices for many necessities are still high, however.
The cost of food is up 10.6% year over year. The cost of gasoline is up 10.1%.
This story was originally published December 15, 2022 at 5:30 AM.
