Despite thousands of store closings this year, Americans supplied a final flurry of spending to give retailers their best holiday season sales since 2011, figures released Tuesday show.

U.S. year-end holiday retail sales rose 4.9% compared to the same period last year, a welcome gift to U.S. retailers amid new signs of consumer confidence.

Online retail shopping similarly increased 18.1%, while overall consumer buying during the holiday period set a record for dollars spent, according to the sales report issued by Mastercard SpendingPulse.

"Overall, this year was a big win for retail," Sarah Quinlan, senior vice president of Market Insights, Mastercard, said in a statement issued with the report. "The strong U.S. economy was a contributing factor, but we also have to recognize that retailers who tried new strategies to engage holiday shoppers were the beneficiaries of this sales increase."

Although the report showed the 2017 holiday shopping season from Nov. 1 to Dec. 24 was a winner for all retailers, the results differed by category. Retailers that succeeded tapped into:

Home goods . There was no place like home for the holidays for many shoppers, who sent sales of electronics and appliances up 7.5%, the strongest growth of the last 10 year. Sales of home furniture and furnishings separately grew 5.1%.

There was no place like home for the holidays for many shoppers, who sent sales of electronics and appliances up 7.5%, the strongest growth of the last 10 year. Sales of home furniture and furnishings separately grew 5.1%. Heavy early-season promotions. They worked, with the first three weeks of November delivering significant sales increases.

They worked, with the first three weeks of November delivering significant sales increases. Last-minute shopping. The spending spree lasted late into the holiday season, making last Saturday second only to the post-Thanksgiving Black Friday in terms of single-day spending. Jewelry sales rose 5.9%, largely driven by last-minute sales.

The findings were based on aggregate sales activity in the Mastercard payments network, along with survey based-estimates for other forms of payment, including cash and checks, Mastercard said. The data exclude auto sales.

The higher spending came from consumers like Aimee Spencer of Hazel Park, Mich., who said she spent 25% more on holiday gifts for her family and friends this year than last year.

Among her purchases were a remote monster truck, an espresso machine and hair barrettes. She also noticed that it looked like the people giving her gifts, like her fiance and her aunt, also were spending more. Her haul included an Apple watch and Waterford crystal goblets.

"I went a little over the budget, but I won’t break the bank by any means," Spencer said. "There’s more hope than ever before. There’s more ambition. The economy is growing. People are feeling more secure."

The results delivered a financial boost to retailers during a year in which dozens of companies sought bankruptcy court protection as they sought to cope with shifting consumer tastes and a continuing shift to e-commerce transactions.

Despite taking the brunt of closings this past year, even specialty apparel and department stores experienced moderate sales gains.

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"Unemployment is pretty low. Consumer confidence is high," said Sucharita Kodali, a retail analyst at Forrester Research. "(There's) disposable income. You can spend it on a piece of sporting equipment, you can upgrade your iPhone or you can buy a Google Home device or whatever it is that interests you."

She said that last year saw lots of big-ticket purchases, like houses, cars and vacations. In 2017, spending migrated to retail.

"You had a unique Christmas this year, which fell on a Monday. That means people are with their families on the days leading up to it. It’s very conducive to store shopping," she said. "This is an unusually good year where a lot of things came together to favor the stores."

In another sign of the overall sector's strength, a public index launched in mid-November to track the performance of traditional U.S. retailers showed a nearly 15.7% increase in market returns as of Friday.

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The Solactive-ProShares Bricks and Mortar Retail Store Index is composed of U.S.companies that account for 75% or more of retail revenue from in-store sales, including Macy's; Costco; Best Buy; Home Depot; Tiffany; Target; Dollar General; Barnes & Noble; The Gap; Sears; Nordstrom; AutoZone; and JC Penney.

Separately, retail e-commerce giant Amazon reported record global shopping, with more than 4 million people starting Amazon Prime free trials or paid memberships in one week alone during the holiday season.

In October, the National Retail Federation forecasted holiday retail sales to increase between 3.6% and 4% for a total of $678.75 billion to $682 billion. In a Tuesday update, NRF CEO Matthew Shay predicted the industry group's final data due in early January would meet or exceed the forecast.

"Retail is absolutely not dead," Stores magazine editor Susan Reda said in a NRF podcast. "It's not collapsing, it's not vanishing, it's alive and well ... in the middle of this transformation."

Contributing: Zlati Meyer

Follow USA TODAY reporter Kevin McCoy on Twitter: @kmccoynyc