“Consumers are still spending, but they’re still price conscious and want to stretch their budgets,” Sundaram said. He said the weeks between Cyber Monday and Super Saturday were a “soft period” for spending, but shoppers used the final weekend before Christmas to look for “big deals.”

Ecommerce sales grew at the slower pace of 6.3 per cent compared to last year’s 10.6 per cent as the popularity of online shopping came off pandemic highs, the report showed.

Sales in the apparel and restaurant categories rose 2.4 per cent and 7.8 per cent, respectively, during the holiday shopping period, according to the Mastercard SpendingPulse report, while sales of electronics fell 0.4 per cent.

Mastercard SpendingPulse measures in-store and online retail sales across all forms of payment. It excludes automotive sales.

Reporting by Savyata Mishra in Bengaluru and Arriana McLymore in Charlotte, North Carolina ; Editing by Devika Syamnath and Mark Porter