What’s Not Selling

US consumers cut back on buying goods on their credit and debit cards in October compared to the same month last year. Bigger ticket items such as home goods, apparel, and electronics were most affected. Dollars spent on cards for leisure activities such as travel were also negative on a year-over-year basis.

What’s Selling

Only a handful of categories had positive card spend. Transit was the fastest growing consumer spend category as workers continue to return to work after the pandemic.

Inflation

Card spend figures benefit from inflation since the total dollar value of purchases rises with inflation. Stripping out inflation from the card spending data gives us a sense of how sales volumes are doing. Without the tailwind of inflation, every category except Transit had negative Y-o-Y growth.