The holiday shopping season could be a very profitable one this year for retailers. “We’re actually predicting the highest sales on record ever for this year,” says Caliey Locklair, President of the Maryland Retailers Association. “And the numbers were looking are somewhere between an 8.5% and a 10% increase which I think will be surprising for folks.”

Locklair says a lot of it is due to pent up demand by consumers following last year when the nation was dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. “And it also impacted by consumers spending less on travel experiences and dining out,” she says.

But Locklair says retailers are also concerned about supply chain issues, and whether they will have enough products in stock for sale to consumers. “Not only do you have the congestion with shipping on the west coast, but the increasing consumer demand, the workforce shortage, rising costs such as minimum wage, wage compression issues. And then you’re seeing inflation go up as consumer spending goes up,” she says.

Click here to read the full article from WFMD.