Gift card sales in the fourth shopping week before Christmas suffered from a large weekend snow storm that hit much of the North East on the last Saturday before Christmas. First Data Corporation continues to track gift card sales data and have compiled their gift card trend data for the first four weeks of the 2009 holiday shopping season.

First Data continues to track gift card sales trends in the 2009 season, comparing actual card sales data in 2009 with similar data over similar shopping periods in 2008.

In the fourth week of shopping before the 2009 holiday, gift card sales suffered from a huge snowstorm that hit much of the North East. The storm arrived during the weekend before Christmas, traditionally a very good weekend for gift card sales.

Gift card activations and redemptions fell slightly during the fourth week, partly due to the storm. Overall, gift card sales (in terms of the number of cards sold during the week compared to the same week last year) fell over 8%.

As a result of the storm, First Data expects that the few days prior to the Christmas holiday will see particularly high sales numbers for all types and classes of gift cards.

Read our earlier review of the First Data numbers in our Gift Card Trends, Week 3, and Gift Card Trends, Weeks 1 and 2. Check out the full reports from First Data here.