Mass. Holiday Sales Fall Short Of Forecast

The Retailers Association of Massachusetts said Tuesday that holiday sales in Massachusetts fell short of the group's earlier forecast and lagged behind national results.

The organization said that a member survey showed retail sales for November and December increased 2 percent over the same period in the previous year.

The association, which had forecast a 3.5 percent increase in sales, said a strong month of November apparently did not carry over into December.

The National Retail Federation said holiday sales nationally rose 3.8 percent over the prior year.

The head of the Massachusetts retailers group, Jon Hurst, noted bad weather and fewer shopping days for the weak results.

"You couple the short calendar, the one less weekend with a couple of storms," Hurst said. "That really cut down trips to the stores by consumers, which invariably was going to cut down on impulse buys."

Hurst says the continued growth of online shopping also took its toll on sales in the state.

With reporting by The Associated Press and the WBUR Newsroom