US clothing & accessories spending slumps 3.9% in early 2025: Earnest

Preliminary March growth represents a deceleration from February after accounting for leap day 2024. March 1-23^rd data reflects the worst monthly trend since November 2024, as per Earnest debit and credit card data.

The deceleration is driven mostly by slower credit card spending growth. Debit card spending has outperformed credit for most of the past 12 months, mirroring overall trends indicating that younger shoppers were the main drivers of growth in clothing and accessory spending.

Meanwhile, the average credit and debit card transaction size at clothing and accessories stores was $122 in the first 23 days of March 2025. The average basket size has mostly declined YoY since December 2024. March represents a further deceleration from February, but an improvement from deeper declines in early 2024.

Earnest’s panel spending at clothing stores tracks the US census Bureau’s Monthly Retail Trade Survey (MRTS) clothing and clothing accessories stores trends with a 0.72 r² since January 2018. Earnest’s panel fell 5.3 per cent YoY in March as of the 23^rd, compared to negative 4 per cent in February 2025, adjusted for leap day. This implies a continued organic deceleration in monthly retail trade survey results reported by the census bureau, as per the data.

Consumer and accessories store transactions show a distinct trend compared to other categories in terms of growth by payment source. In March so far, debit card ticket sizes rose by 1.2 per cent YoY, while credit card transactions declined by 2.1 per cent, reflecting a notable divergence.

Consumer spending at clothing and accessories stores grew the fastest in Hawaii, Louisiana, and Ohio. Alaska, South Dakota, and The District of Columbia were the slowest growing states. Nevertheless, clothing spending fell in most states.

ALCHEMPro News Desk (SG)