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"December [sales] started slowly and built as it got closer to Christmas"
- Madison Riley, a retail strategist at consulting firm Kurt Salmon
U.S. retail sales rose 4.5 per cent for the week ended December 24, compared to the same period last year as shops offered discounts to lure consumers, said the International Council of Shopping Centers and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. on Wednesday.
"Retailers who gave deals found that consumers would spend," Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at NPD Group in Port Washington, New York, said on Wednesday.
"The holiday was better than expected. Consumers who were tired of living in this spending cocoon went out and bought what they needed and wanted."