ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.—As the holidays rapidly approach, new data from Velera reveal consumers are pulling out their debit cards at a higher rate than credit.
The November edition of the Velera Payments Index shows that for October, year-over-year growth rates improved. Debit purchases were up 5.1%, while credit purchases were up 0.7%. Debit transactions were up 3.7% and credit transactions were up 1.7%.
The Service and Goods sectors contributed to this positive growth, while lower gasoline prices contributed to small declines in purchases. Money Services continued to be the largest contributor to the growth in debit purchases, accounting for 1.8% of the 5.1% year-over-year increase, Velera said.
The 2024 holiday shopping season officially kicked off in October, with major retailers holding start-of-season sales events. Amazon, Target and Walmart all posted positive growth in debit card activity, while only Target posted positive growth in credit cards. For the month of October, the overall Goods sector posted strong year-over-year growth, up 5.5% in credit purchases and 5.7% in debit purchases.
Amazon held their two-day Prime Big Deal Days sale on Oct. 8-9, Target held their seven-day Circle Week sale Oct. 6-12 and Walmart held their six-day Walmart Holiday Deals event on Oct. 8-13 – all three within the same week this year.
Big Deal Days
For the Amazon Prime Big Deal Days event, credit purchases were down 1.6% and debit purchases were up 3.3% when comparing the similar year-over-year days. Transaction growth was better than the growth in purchases for this timeframe, Velera said.
Credit transactions were down 0.1% and debit transactions were up 4.5% year over year. For the Target Circle Week event, year-over-year growth results were up, with credit purchases up 3.0% and debit purchases up 2.8%, while credit transactions were up 4.8% and debit transactions were up 4.4%. Credit purchases were up 3.0% and debit purchases were up 2.8%, while credit transactions were up 4.8% and debit transactions were up 4.4%.
Walmart had the weakest year-over-year growth of the three retailers for the October sale events. Credit purchases were down 0.4% and debit purchases were up 1.8% year over year, while credit transaction growth was down 0.4% and debit was up 1.3%.
The full report is available for download here.