Courtesy of Calculated Risk, fine purveyors of macroeconomic data charts, we have the 25 year trend for retail spending in the United States.
Retail is shifting in myriad other ways other than total spending, but the quarter-century trend is an incremental, constant increase.
Not pictured: the bifurcation of “Dollar Stores” and luxury “experience” retail, consolidation of big box “category killers,” the move from bricks-and-mortar to online, and much more.