News

Mastercard: U.S. Holiday Sales Grew 8.5 Percent
According to Mastercard SpendingPulse, holiday retail sales, excluding automotive, increased 8.5 percent year-over-year this holiday season, running from November 1 through December 24. Notably, online sales grew 11.0 percent compared to the same period last year, its preliminary insights show. | More Information

Recall on GSM Outdoors Captain Hang-on Treestands
About 1,030 Captain Hang-on Treestands from GSM Outdoors are being recalled. According to the CPSC, the crimps of the plastic-coated cables can slip during use causing the standing platform to release, posing fall and injury hazards to users. GSM Outdoors has received ten reports of the treestand cables releasing and causing consumers to fall. Two injuries have been reported. | More Information

 
Keen Donates $100,000 to Tornado Victims in Kentucky 
With a distribution center just south of Louisville, Ky., footwear maker KEEN and its employees felt a direct effect from recent tornadoes that ripped through the state. “While the tornados struck about 20 miles away from our facility, the death and destruction hit home,” KEEN Effect Vice President Erik Burbank told Outside Business Journal, noting that the distribution center has a team of more than 130 employees.Burbank said that in the immediate aftermath of the storms, the company’s teams went into response mode, supporting both victims and first responders on the ground. Part of that response was a commitment of $100,000 in cash and products, split as $75,000 to United Way of Kentucky’s Kentucky Tornado Fund and $37,000 in boots to nonprofit Good360 to help get footwear to those who need it most. | More Information

Port of Los Angeles Headed to Record Cargo Year 
The Port of Los Angeles is on track to break a new record for cargo in 2021, processing more volume than any port in the Western Hemisphere. With two weeks left in the year, the Port said it anticipates its final volume will be approximately 10.7 million Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs), about 13 percent more than its previous record set in 2018. | More Information


Toy Fair ’22 Moves Forward with Strict Safety Protocols
The Toy Association continues to move forward with plans for Toy Fair New York, taking place February 19 through 22, 2022. “Providing an environment for the toy and play community to come together to connect, engage, and do business safely remains the essential top priority, and from the very beginning The Toy Association has required proof of vaccine and mask wearing for every person entering Toy Fair 2022,” said Steve Pasierb, president & CEO at The Toy Association. “While we recognize that the new variant has created uncertainty and it’s an evolving situation we monitor throughout each day, those planning to attend Toy Fair should know the Javits Center is among the safest venues in the country to come together.” | More Information

2021 Retail Imports to Show Record Growth Despite Pandemic
Imports at the nation’s major retail container ports are expected to end 2021 with both the largest volume and fastest growth on record despite supply chain disruptions brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released today by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates. Imports for 2021 are expected to total 26 million Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units, an increase of 18.3 percent over 2020 and the highest number since NRF began tracking imports in 2002. The projected total would top last year’s previous record of 22 million, which was up 1.9 percent despite the pandemic. The growth rate would also be the highest on record, topping 16.7 percent in 2010 as the economy recovered from the Great Recession. | More Information


The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of Group’s Anti-Hunting Lawsuit 
The anti-hunting Center for Biological Diversity is once again trying to eliminate hunting on public lands within National Wildlife Refuges under the guise of “protecting endangered wildlife. The activist organization’s latest lawsuit seeks to kill hunting activities on more than 2.3 million acres of public lands overseen by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) even though USFWS’s own website promotes hunting as a wildlife management tool. No matter for the Center for Biologic Diversity. For them, it’s eliminate hunting or bust. | More Information


November Retail Sales Put Holiday Season on Track to Set New Records
Retail sales continued to grow in November, putting the 2021 holiday season on the home stretch for record spending despite inflation, supply chain disruptions and COVID-19, the National Retail Federation said. The U.S. Census Bureau said overall retail sales in November were up 0.3 percent seasonally adjusted from October and up 18.2 percent year-over-year. That compares with increases of 1.8 percent month-over-month and 16.3 percent year-over-year in October. Despite occasional month-over-month declines, sales have grown year-over-year every month since June 2020, according to Census data. | More Information

WASHINGTON – The 2021 holiday season appears to be on track to exceed the National Retail Federation’s forecast for record spending despite supply chain disruptions, inflation and challenges like the new COVID-19 omicron variant, NRF Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz said. Kleinhenz’s remarks came in the December issue of NRF’s Monthly Economic Review, which said holiday retail sales during November and December could now grow as much as 11.5 percent over the same period in 2020. That would exceed NRF’s forecast that holiday sales would be up between 8.5 percent and 10.5 percent. | More Information

New polling confirms Americans are increasingly rejecting gun control calls amidst circumstances that have left them feeling exposed to danger and unsafe in their communities. Americans, by the millions, have turned those anxieties into empowerment by purchasing a firearm, exercising their Second Amendment right for protection and rejecting gun control politicians and their schemes. Two recent polls show the shift. Gallup pins American support for more gun control at a tick above 50 percent, the lowest mark since 2014. At the same time, Quinnipiac polling pegged the number even lower, showing just 45 percent support stricter gun laws – a drop of nine points since April this year. | More Information