DUBLIN, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- Irish households will spend an average of 2,690 euros (3,050 U.S. dollars) during this year's Christmas shopping season which refers to the entire December, said a report on Monday.
The figure will represent a 3.3 percent increase over the same period last year, said the report which was released by Retail Ireland, the largest group of Irish retailers with members operating over 3,000 shops across the country.
The report predicted that the entire Irish retail sector will achieve a total sales of 4.65 billion euros in December, which is an increase of 150 million euros over the previous Christmas shopping season.
Thomas Burke, Director of Retail Ireland, said rising disposable incomes, record numbers at work and falling prices are the main driving factors behind the growth of this year.
The report quoted the official statistics as saying that gross disposable income in Ireland was up 4.4 percent in the first half of 2018, following on from a 5.7 percent growth in 2017.
Overall employment in the country grew by 66,700 in the year to the end of this September, it said, adding that there are now more people at work than at any time in the country's history.
Prices of consumer goods in Ireland witnessed a year-on-year drop of 0.8 percent in the first ten months of this year, which will encourage Irish consumers to spend more in this year's Christmas shopping season, said the report.
While the Christmas shopping season for this year looks very promising, retailers should also be ready for the challenges posed by the on-line sales, it said, adding that setting up their own on-line sales is a good idea for retailers.
According to the report, growth in the online sales channel in Ireland is running at a rate ten times higher than that of traditional bricks and mortar outlets with the total e-commerce spend in the country likely to exceed 16 billion euros in 2018. (1 euro = 1.134 U.S. dollars)
