Visa: Sales are up 4.2% for first 7 weeks of the holiday shopping period but the pace lags last year

NEW YORK (AP) — Consumers stepped up their spending, particularly on items like gadgets and clothing, for the first seven weeks of the holiday shopping period. But the pace was slower than a year ago amid worries about higher prices and other economic concerns, according to new data from Visa released Tuesday. From Nov. 1 through Sunday, holiday sales rose 4.2%, a slower clip from the 4.8% increase during the same period a year ago, according to the company’s Visa Consulting & Analytics division, which analyzed a subset of Visa payments network data in the U.S. The figure includes all…