The retail industry’s report card for the critical holiday shopping season is in.

American shoppers surprised analysts, economists and even retail executives by spending more than expected in November and December. But a closer read shows that not all retailers are benefiting.

Retail sales during the holiday season increased 4 percent from a year earlier, according to data from the Commerce Department. Purchases of cars, clothes and electronics helped bolster sales.

Over the last week or so, some retailers have signaled how business went during the holidays — with more reports to come in February. Target’s November and December total sales rose nearly 3 percent from the prior year, pushed higher as people put more clothes and toys in their shopping carts. Abercrombie & Fitch said sales had exceeded expectations and predicted growth of 7 to 8 percent over the 2023 holiday shopping season.

Lululemon, the maker of $98 leggings and other athletic wear, said it anticipated sales growth of 11 to 12 percent in the fourth quarter. “I still see a consumer that’s healthy,” Calvin McDonald, chief executive of Lululemon, said in an interview.

For some retailers, though, customers did not seem in a mood to splurge.

Signet Jewelers, which owns Kay Jewelers, Zales and Jared, said its comparable sales would decline as much as 2.5 percent in the fourth quarter because of weaker-than-expected sales in the days leading up to Christmas. When it came to “fashion gifting,” customers “gravitated to lower price points even more than anticipated,” Joan Hilson, Signet’s chief financial and operating officer, said in a statement, and the company did not have enough of what shoppers were seeking.

Macy’s, which warned analysts in December that its customers were holding back, said sales were roughly flat during the fourth quarter. The department store chain is in a monthslong process of closing 66 of its 479 stores, from Philadelphia to Sacramento, with more to come through 2026. But it said comparable sales had increased at the Macy’s locations that it sees as its future, as well as Bloomingdale’s and the beauty chain Bluemercury, which it also owns.