During that time, Halloween has grown to become one of the most popular holidays of the year, average spending on back-to-school items has increased 31 percent since 2004, and Thanksgiving Day has officially become a bonafide shopping day for millions of bargain-hungry Americans. I am frequently asked how holidays “rank” when it comes to consumer spending so I thought I would dig into it a little bit more and add some context to who, what, when, where, why and how people shop for our consumer holidays. Here’s how each holiday ranks as of the release of our Mother’s Day survey:

Holiday Spending Totals In Billions, 2013-2014

Information Seasons with the * indicates the data is from the 2013 Monthly Consumer Survey

Charts from the NRF Foundation’s Retail Insight Center. To access this data and more research please visit the Retail Insight Center.

Winter holidays: As the largest gift-giving holiday of them all, the winter holidays account for nearly 20 percent of total annual retail sales for retailers. In 2013, holiday celebrants spent an average of $730 on gifts, food, decorations and more. After all was said and done, NRF found that holiday sales increased 3.8 percent to $602 billion. More than 90 percent of Americans celebrated Christmas, Kwanza or Hanukah last winter, the most-celebrated season of the year.

Back to school/college: Spending on pencils, backpacks, denim, college dorm furniture and collegiate wear, tablets, smartphones and notebooks costs mom and dad hundreds of dollars on average and a total of $72.5 billion last year. But savvy parents know bargains are not hard to find. Almost every sector of retail plays a role: drug stores, thrift stores, electronics stores, department stores, discount stores and even grocery stores for penny-pinching college students and their parents.

Mother’s Day: Consumers say they will spend an average $163 this year – $19.9 billion total – with the majority of their budget going to special outings, new apparel items and jewelry. As to why Mother’s Day is so much bigger than Father’s Day: the types of gifts people typically buy mom tend to cost a little more, and dad even admits that he doesn’t like all the fuss anyway.

Halloween: In 2013, two-thirds of Americans said they would partake in Halloween activities, spending $75 on average to celebrate for a total of $6.9 billion. In addition to the pint-sized “Despicable Me” costumes that now roam the streets on Halloween, the holiday has become more of an adult event than ever before, helping boost spending on costumes, candy, decorations and party materials more than 55 percent since 2005. With the growth in popularity, other sectors have jumped into the mix. Home improvement stores take advantage of their vast space to sell life-size yard decorations, and drug and grocery stores are also now devoting select aisles to decorations candy and costumes.

Visit the Retail Insight Center for a breakdown of other consumer holidays like Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter and more, and sign up to receive “Consumer Trends” press releases on NRF.com.

Of course you have. Because knowing how consumers spend – and what they spend on – is important to anyone tied to the retail industry. Retailers can use this data to analyze spending patterns and trends across demographics, policymakers can examine the impact of policies on consumer spending, and others invested in the industry can track how spending on goods changes each season and how consumers split their budgets.

The NRF Foundation’s Retail Insight Center recently launched new pages dedicated to actual consumer spend data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Expenditures Survey. The Retail Insight Center, sponsored by KPMG, offers easy access to this complex data.

View the data in the Retail Insight Center

The consumer spending data goes back 48 months (organized by quarter) and is available for filtering by consumer demographics, including consumer age and gender. Simply log in or create a free account to access data and build your own customized charts.  Here are just a few of the categories you’ll find:

• Grocery item spending on cereal, meats, bread and milk
• Spending on specific clothing and accessories items like men’s pants, infant shoes and women’s dresses
• Household item spending on laundry and cleaning supplies or paint and wallpaper

Coupled with other Retail Insight Center resources, the use of this new consumer spending data is extensive. You can find all of this under the “Consumers” tab in the Retail Insight Center (see a full list of categories under the “Actual Spend” menu).

A strengthening economy means that companies have a choice in employees, and employees have choices in companies. A recent global study by LinkedIn showed that – across all industries – compensation and benefits are the top motivators for employed individuals who are not actively on the job hunt to consider taking a new job. This means that even if your employees aren’t browsing the NRF Job Board every day, they could potentially be lured away by a better benefits package or a boost in salary.

According to the same survey, those who are actively seeking a new place to plant their pencil cup would be most interested in better opportunities for advancement, but consider compensation and benefits the next important factor in deciding to leave their current company.

As they say, money isn’t everything, and a lot more than salary goes into an employee’s decision to stay at her current company, look for a new opportunity or accept a job offer. However, understanding how your company’s paystubs stack up against similar companies and positions is invaluable insight for remaining competitive. To help retailers with this, the NRF Foundation partners with Mercer on an industry-exclusive annual benchmarking survey: the U.S. Retail Compensation & Benefits Survey. The end result is a report that provides compensation data for more than 225 specific positions – including everything from a store custodian to a director of e-commerce – with the ability to segment by company size, geographic location and merchandise category.

While the 2013 survey is still available for purchase, participation in the 2014 survey is now open – and we strongly recommend participating if you’re thinking about purchasing the report. Here’s why:

• Participants can compare their own data directly with market data, getting a true apples-to-apples look.
• Participants get access to webcasts that highlight key findings, insights and related industry/economic context.
• Participants get 50% off the already discounted NRF Member price for the results.

The survey database also reports information on retail-specific practices including pay philosophy, commissions, shift differentials, turnover, performance and recognition programs, benefit plans, paid time off, recruiting and retention practices, and employee discounts.

The 2014 survey is in full swing and will be open through April 30. Now is the time to participate and discover how your data compares to others in the industry. Learn more and download a questionnaire to get started, and email with any questions or concerns.

As STORES’ March cover story explained, CIOs can summarize both their priorities and challenges in one word: agility. And in the inaugural issue of “Retail CIO Download,” retail’s leading CIOs were asked how they are embracing this kind of “speed-it-up” mentality while also sharpening their focus on the biggest priority of all – data security. Dave Finnegan, chief interactive and information officer at Build-A-Bear Workshop, and Tom Litchford, NRF vice president of retail technology, cover the key challenges and initiatives identified by retail technology leaders in “Retail CIO Download 2014 Agenda: Leadership and Agility.”

Download the report (NRF Members only)

This is the inaugural issue of the “Retail CIO Download” series. Provide a background of the study and explain how “2014 Agenda: Leadership and Agility” sets the tone for future issues.

Litchford: There’s a wealth of knowledge and experience at the table in NRF’s CIO Council. But we realized that, at times, the council would get bogged down reacting to current issues as opposed to leading the important conversations in retail technology. Instead of being reactionary to ideas like big data and security, we determined that as a group we needed to start thinking about how we can progress conversations from the beginning. The CIO Download series is our first of many conversations where we’ll be showcasing our council’s collective thought-leadership so our colleagues in the C-suite and industry partners better understand the issues and trends facing the retail industry.

Data security is a top priority for CIOs. How do this report and NRF’s newly-formed IT Security Council address this topic?

Litchford: This is the obvious elephant in the room for 2014, and every CIO on the council considers data security a top priority. From the report we know that significant investments will continue to be made in this area, and the discussion goes far beyond just addressing the payments ecosystem. With that, the CIO Council has established a new committee – the IT Security Council – to focus in three areas: Providing a forum for peer collaboration and information exchange; developing industry best practices for a risk management framework; and advising NRF on advocacy and policy issues regarding data security and protection.

Integrating brick-and-mortar and digital systems is another major focus right now for retailers. How are CIOs and their teams stepping up their game to meet the challenges of channel integration?  

Finnegan: We have realized as an industry that we over use words like “omnichannel” or “multichannel.” Simply put, its “retail” for today’s consumer. This is the new reality for shopping because customers use multiple touch points to interact with our brands. CIOs are helping to lead the way by implementing the right architecture, software and systems to make shopping as seamless as possible.

There are two additional keys to success. First, integrating business through internal communication and operational execution. And second, using mobile as the glue that brings together all these customer interactions from across all channels.

Build-A-Bear CIO Dave Finnegan

What new methods or tools are CIOs using to tackle analytics and business intelligence? 

Finnegan: CIOs are rethinking how we can rebuild traditional architecture through tools like ARTS’ data models to handle the tremendous amount of data we have now and will have in the future. We are also looking into how to use predictive analytics, or how to use data to forecast future demands and customer expectations. The role of data scientist is now emerging to fill the need for more predictive analytics. These are the opportunities CIOs will help to deliver value quickly and drive business results.

What’s driving the need for recruiting and retaining top talent? What does it say about the evolving role of the CIO – and the IT department as a whole – within the retail organization?

Finnegan: What is really impacting the need for better talent is the fact that technology is ubiquitous in all our companies. Today, technology is not only the infrastructure for running our business; it’s also how customers interact with our brands. We actively look for professionals with this frame of mind who have a strong knowledge of the technology field and business acumen.

What are your thoughts on this new type of CIO? How is the role evolving or emerging as more strategic to the business?

Finnegan: The role of the CIO has dramatically changed in the last five to 10 years due in large part to consumers’ expectations and connectedness. Retail IT executives now play a more integral role in shaping business strategy. Driven by the shared need to understand and serve the customer’s expectations, the walls that once separated IT from key internal partners such as marketing and merchandising are dissolving. Advocates for every channel are meeting more frequently with logistics to find better ways to accomplish customer fulfillment.

For a consumer to eventually choose to shop and spend money – from any generation and at any company – it boils down to past experiences: how they feel about the economy, their money-spending lifestyle and how they place value in items they’re shopping for. Looking at consumers by when they were born unveils trends retailers can use for understanding who they are selling to and how they should best reach them.

The NRF Foundation today is releasing a new report, Across the Ages: Generational Impact on Spending, with consumer research by Prosper Insights and Analytics and supported by a contribution from KPMG. The report examines buying triggers and influencers, as well as the impact of economic fluctuations on purchase decisions among multiple generations. And it gives insight into how trending attitudes among the groups can be taken into account when building retail and marketing strategy.

Download the report

Here are a few discoveries from the research:

• Less than one in four consumers in Generation X (those born between 1965 and 1980) consider the newest trends and styles personally important when it comes to shopping for clothing. A somewhat stronger focus on traditional, conservative looks will be appealing to the largest share in this generation.

• Even when the Silent Generation (born before 1945) was young, they lived by the motto, “waste not, want not.” To move consumers in this group towards a purchase, it is important to stress practicality and necessity.

• More than four in five Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964), who are largely still working and preparing for future retirement, had a renewed focus on eating at home in the last six months of 2013. For retailers this can mean more trips to the grocery store, but fewer visits to neighborhood restaurants, and also an emphasis on making smart purchase decisions in other spending areas.

• Not all consumers are turned on by a “low price” strategy. More than one in five Millennials (born between 1981 and 1995) don’t consider sales most important when shopping for clothing.

All of the data found in the Across the Ages: Generational Impact on Spending, and all other Spotlight Reports can be found in NRF’s Retail Insight Center. Each provides instant access to some of the most important trends in retail, covering careers, employment and spending as well as key economic indicators and influencers.

In fact, one retailer’s unusually early holiday-themed commercial in September  secured their place as one of the more memorable ads in recent history. According to thousands of consumers polled recently, they have been driving the conversation ever since.

When asked which retailer had the best holiday TV commercial, 12 percent of holiday shoppers said Kmart, up significantly from the nearly 2 percent in 2012. The survey, conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics, found that Walmart (22 percent) and Target (14 percent) were the clear winners in the eyes of consumers, but the survey makes it evident that Kmart’s edgy take on “Jingle Bells” and Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” really caught people’s attention this year. Watch both TV spots below.

As for the retailers waiting to receive those returns and exchanges, you can bet they are ready to go the extra mile in the few weeks after Christmas to make sure their customers have a pleasant experience. The week after Christmas can account for as much as 15 percent of the sales for retailers during the holiday season. While millions of people head to the stores this week to do a little “self-gifting,” many more will return the sweaters or pajamas – given with good intentions – that just don’t fit their style.

Returns are an integral part of retailers’ operations. Some companies like Zappos even tout free return shipping for their online customers. These types of services go a long way to satisfy busy holiday shoppers. NRF’s 2013 Holiday Returns Survey conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics found the average person returned nearly four holiday gifts last year. More than 60 percent also said they actually didn’t return a thing.

There’s one sure-fire way to still give a gift and help the recipient avoid any kind of hassle when making a return or exchange – a gift receipt. According to the survey, 61 percent of holiday shoppers say they give a gift receipt most or some of the time during the holiday season.

January will be just as busy for retailers as people come into the stores to redeem their new gift cards. But holiday returns will also likely continue through the month. Whether it’s because the color is all wrong or it simply doesn’t fit, we offer consumers five tips for a seamless return experience this holiday season:

1. Unwrap carefully. Original packaging is a must for some retailers when it comes to returns. As best you can, make sure all boxes and gifts are returned in the condition they were purchased.
2. Give the gift of receipts. While many retailers may allow consumers to make returns without an original or gift receipt, some don’t. To ensure a hassle-free return, it’s still a great idea to present one. If you know family or friends have plans to return an item, provide them with the original or gift receipt.
3. Make a list and check it twice. Many retailers have their return policies posted online or displayed within stores. Gift-givers should make a list of where they shopped and make note of their return policies.
4. Know your online store policies, too. While millions of gift-givers are in-store shoppers, many are purchasing gifts online. When making an online return, it’s important to know who pays for shipping (the customer or retailer) and the exact location that returned items should be sent.
5. Keep calm and shop on. Just like shopping leading up to the holidays, returns can be hectic for retailers and shoppers alike. Come prepared with patience when returning merchandise.

Download the full results of NRF’s 2013 Holiday Returns Survey here.

Take the past year for example. In 2013, consumer attitudes swung wildly due to a number of factors, including economic and fiscal policy, interest rates, gasoline prices, stock prices, home values and taxes just to name a few. These factors all made reading the American consumer extremely difficult and led to a very volatile consumer metric that moved almost independently of actually spending.

Taking a closer look at data

This volatility made many wonder if we could discern anything from economic indicators and whether we should have confidence in the use of these measures. There is no perfect indicator that has all the properties and inputs necessary to tell the complete story. The economy is just too large and too complex for simple analysis.

Fortunately though, there is a valuable stream of data available today that provides great insight into the economy and where consumers actually stand.

Hard and soft

To help sort the data, economists divide economic information into two specific yet equally important categories: “hard data” and “soft data.”

“Hard data” is based on direct measures of economic activity such as retail sales, consumer credit and employment. Most of this data is derived from government or public sources or institutions and is revised and adjusted to account for variations and variables.

“Soft data,” such as consumer attitude surveys, provide qualitative assessments reflecting general perceptions and intentions, which may have a looser link to the overall state of the consumer or economy. (The Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank’s publication provides a brief overview of these surveys).

While “hard data” is the preferred choice of many economists, it is often released with a one or two-month lag. “Soft data,” by contrast, is typically released monthly, weekly or even daily, making it more user-friendly but susceptible to extremes – or worse – misinterpretation. In reality, one faces a trade-off between timeliness and reliability.

Nevertheless, both types of data – used in unison – are vital to measure consumer and economic activity. I provide this kind of analysis for NRF members in my Monthly Economic Review report.

Surveying consumers

Consumers’ perceptions of the strength of the economy and their personal finances are closely linked to their attitudes of optimism and pessimism about the direction of the country.

In theory, if households are optimistic, they are more willing to make purchases and incur debt to finance higher spending. Likewise, when consumers are pessimistic they are likely to reduce spending, pay off bills and loans, and save more.

There are many surveys out there that measure consumer sentiment daily and weekly.  Each asks similar but slightly different questions, or poll different audiences. All of them, however, are open to their own interpretation and use.

Can we have confidence in consumer confidence?

When looking at consumer attitude data, a dose of psychology is required. Consumers are not as logical as we might think and are susceptible to erroneous decision-making.

I suggest that the erratic and volatile consumer attitude indexes – witnessed throughout 2013 – reflect the conditioning learned from the recent recession and constant media reports on the dire state of the economy rather than the underlying economic fundamentals. I am not suggesting that consumer attitudes are wrongheaded regarding the wrangling over federal finances or the recent government shutdown or the yet-to-be-resolved debt ceiling but it is hard to determine which ones are right and which ones are wrong. Was the economy as bad off as consumers believed it to be?

Indeed, there is no reason to measure consumer attitudes unless they can help predict future patterns in spending or behavior. These surveys were never designed to be the sole determinant in predicting consumer patterns and used in a vacuum tend to tilt to the extremes. Used alone, surveys do not make good crystal balls.

From my perspective, as an economist, these indexes if smoothed to average the monthly data and viewed over longer periods of time can be used to discern consumer patterns and trends. Studies have also found that combining selected components of consumer attitude indexes (“soft data”) with “hard data” can reduce errors in forecasts and improve accuracy.

Economists do not have it all figured out. So paying attention to the trends, understanding the differences in what is being measured, and being mindful of what people do rather than what they say they will do are all important in understanding changes in consumer behavior and predicting spending. More and better data can help create a more accurate picture of the economy, but there is no easy answer.

As Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke made clear, “exclusive attention to aggregate numbers is likely to paint an incomplete economic picture.” I hope every politician, commentator, reporter, retailer, consumer and economist takes this very sage advice.

First, let’s travel to 1939 to see what the day after Thanksgiving looked like for retailers and consumers. Before that year, retailers typically waited until the day after Thanksgiving to advertise holiday sales. That’s a stark contrast to today, when only one in five Americans wait until December to start their holiday shopping.

But if you grab a newspaper, you’ll see 1939 was a major year for retail. President Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving up a week, to the second-to-last Thursday in November, putting more shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas. While this was positive news for retailers, consumers were not on board. According to a Gallup poll that August, 59 percent of Americans disapproved of the holiday date-change.

It took until 1941 for Congress to solidify Thanksgiving as the fourth Thursday in November (but don’t tell anyone or you’ll risk messing up future events). Remember what happened when Biff found the Almanac? Let’s make like a tree and leave.

Now let’s travel to Black Friday 2006. That was the year Twitter was launched and Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie” was all over the radio. Some of the hottest toys included the “TMX” version of Tickle Me Elmo, PlayStation3 and Bratz dolls. About 95 million consumers shopped over the holiday weekend, with three out of five hitting the stores on Friday and many getting there between 4 and 6 a.m.

2006 was also the first year NRF tracked how many people shopped online the Monday after Thanksgiving – otherwise known as, Cyber Monday. At a time when most people only had a dialup connection at home – if any Internet access at all – we found 27 percent of consumers waited until Monday to do their online shopping so they could take advantage of the high-speed web access at work. Make sure to keep your smartphones in your pockets while we’re in 2006 – cell phones were common but smartphones were still a pretty futuristic idea.

It’s nice here, but with the housing bubble about to burst, I think we should get the flux capacitor up to 1.21 gigawatts and head for 2013.

Now that we’re back to 2013, let’s see how 2006 compares with this past weekend. An estimated 141 million people shopped this year, 48 percent more than then, and they spent $23 billion more. In the future, I think we’ll enjoy coming back to this holiday season.

Another difference is the rise of Cyber Monday as a top shopping day. Since 2006 the number of shared shoppers on this day has nearly doubled – 54 percent of Black Friday weekend shoppers this year compared with 27 percent back then. As the share of consumers with more than one computer, smartphone or tablet grows, I would expect the future of Cyber Monday shopping to be bright.

If you’d like to see more on how Thanksgiving weekend turned out for retailers and shoppers – travel back in time to Tuesday to check out this blog post outlining more of the top trends we saw. Now that I’m back at my desk in 2013 I think I’ll stay here for a while – at least until our next trip back in time. If you’d like to travel back in time for retail stats on your own, register on the Retail Insight Center to unlock countless pieces of data – just make sure not to break any of the time-travel rules, or we’re all in trouble.

As the Super Bowl for the retail industry, all bets were off this weekend when many retailers opened their doors on Thanksgiving Day. NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay on Black Friday told CNBC that when all is said and done, “the consumer is the real winner.” Some retailers touted free $100 gift cards with the purchase of an iPad Air while others gave in-store shoppers a chance to win a Nexus 7 tablet or one of 10 weekend getaways. Discounts and special deals like these were a powerful combination for retailers this past weekend.

In addition to what Shay and Prosper’s Consumer Insights Director Pam Goodfellow said during NRF’s annual media briefing, here are a few of our top takeaways from the weekend:

More people were shopping, but were spending less. Discounts and low prices, combined with the fact that 53 percent of Americans started their shopping in early November, were contributing factors to shopping over the holiday weekend. Spending dropped 3 percent to $57 billion, at an average $407. But with the number of shoppers up 1 percent and Thanksgiving Day in-store traffic growing 27 percent over last year, retailers are still calling the weekend a win.

Why the uncertainty? NRF’s forecast that holiday sales will increase 3.9 percent to $602.1 billion holds strong. But Americans still aren’t sure about the staying power of the economic recovery. Family income hasn’t grown in quite some time, and next year’s added health care costs mean consumers are keeping a close eye on holiday budgets.

Millennial power. NRF’s survey of consumers found young adults 18-34 spent an average $460 over the weekend, the highest of any age group. As in years past, they showed up eager to take advantage of retailers’ Thanksgiving deals: 49 percent were at stores by midnight on Thanksgiving, with eight in 10 shopping on Thanksgiving Day and 58 percent on Black Friday. And 31 percent shopped online on Cyber Monday using mobile devices. Retailers are smart to target and engage these shoppers.

Thanksgiving weekend goes digital. Consumers want to shop when they want, where they want and how they want, regardless of the channel, and retailers are responding. Walmart saw 400 million page views on its web site on Thanksgiving Day, including customers who used smartphones, tablets and computers. And NRF found similar excitement among weekend shoppers: nearly 44 percent of what consumers spent between Thursday and Sunday was spent online, up from 42 percent last year. The average amount spent online also increased, up 3 percent at $178 over the weekend.

Cyber Monday continues to grow. Retailers were touting “cyber” deals as early as November 20, even leaking information about their own upcoming deals, and Cyber Monday was bigger than ever. More than 131 million consumers shopped online on Cyber Monday, up from 129 million last year, according to numbers from NRF and our Shop.org division. Sites like CyberMonday.com worked overtime to attract holiday shoppers, and retailers ramped up efforts to perfect their mobile sites and apps to make sure they had the capacity to handle expected traffic. In just one example, eBags founder Peter Cobb told me his company’s sales were up 21 percent over last year by 3 p.m. on the big day.

The most telling Cyber Monday consumer statistic might be in the numbers for mobile. More than 25 million Cyber Monday shoppers – nearly one in five – shopped using their smartphones or tablets, up 22 percent over last year. As NRF Senior Vice President and Shop.org Executive Director Vicki Cantrell told Bloomberg, it’s this influx of mobile that has the retail industry’s attention during the holidays and year-round.