[babypuncher]

But demand for services and "experiences" is way up.

I think it's unrealistic to expect retail goods to maintain the same highs they had during the pandemic. For a big chunk of the last two years, people couldn't go to concerts, bars and restaurants operated at limited capacity, vacation destinations had travel restrictions in place, etc. This lead people to take the discretionary income they would normally spend on those things and put it into retail goods that improve their lives stuck at home. TVs, game consoles, what have you. Now that restrictions are essentially nonexistent in the US, people are returning to those pre-COVID activities.

[pclmulqdq]

The evidence does not suggest that demand for services and experiences is up. Demand for durable goods spiked when COVID checks went out, then returned to parity with demand for services and non-durable goods. According to the fed, both of those have dropped over the last two years.