The Coresight Research US Apparel and Beauty Spending Tracker provides a monthly update on the trajectory of consumer spending on beauty, clothing and footwear. The data presented in this report refer to consumer spending through any channels and so differ from retail sales data, which include product category sales by type of retailer. The data are sourced from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Clothing and Footwear Spending Update Consumer spending on clothing and footwear saw year-over-year growth of 0.8% in January 2021, compared to deep declines of 9.1% in December and 5.9% in November 2020, marking the first month of year-over-year growth since February 2020. The revival may reflect the continuation of economic stimulus checks from the US government in response to the pandemic, with the second round of payments delivered to consumers from December 29, 2020. The third payment of stimulus checks is due to be signed off by the US president this week. Figure 1. US Consumer Spending on Clothing and Footwear (YoY % Change) [caption id="attachment_124364" align="aligncenter" width="720"] Note: Expenditure data are seasonally adjusted
Source: BEA/Coresight Research[/caption]   Clothing and Footwear Spending by Subcategory We track subcategories of clothing and footwear, including children’s and infant’s clothing, footwear, men’s and boy’s clothing, and women’s and girl’s clothing. Spending on clothing saw a relatively mild year-over-year decline of 0.3% in January 2021, with a 1% decline in women’s and girl’s clothing spending specifically. Contrastingly, children’s and infant’s clothing, and men’s and boy’s clothing both saw positive year-over-year growth of 2.7% and 0.4%, respectively. Figure 2 shows spending on clothing by category type. Category sales growth followed the same growth pattern as clothing overall, with sequential declines in growth from October to December 2020, followed by a revival in January 2021. Figure 2. US Consumer Spending on Clothing, by Category (YoY% Change) [caption id="attachment_124365" align="aligncenter" width="720"] Source: BEA/Coresight Research[/caption]   Spending on footwear increased by 3.8% year over year in January 2021, versus a 6.4% decline in December 2020. Figure 3. US Consumer Spending on Footwear (YoY % Change) [caption id="attachment_124366" align="aligncenter" width="720"] Source: BEA/Coresight Research[/caption]   Beauty Spending Update For our tracker, we include bath products, cosmetics, nail preparations and implements, and perfumes within the beauty category, following the US BEA definition. Growth in consumer spending on beauty surged to 9.8% year over year in January 2021, compared to year-over-year growth of 2.3% in December and 5.1% in November 2020. In January, spending on beauty in January reached a record since 2019. Spending on beauty has recovered quickly from June 2020 onward and has seen positive year-over-year growth since July 2020. Figure 3. US Consumer Spending on Selected Beauty Categories (YoY % Change) [caption id="attachment_124367" align="aligncenter" width="720"] Beauty defined as bath products, cosmetics, nail preparations and implements, and perfume
Source: BEA/Coresight Research[/caption]