Discounts and sales events have remained a significant sales driver, as consumers emerge from a more than two-year stretch of high inflation. It’s unclear how much those deals will cut into Target’s and other retailers’ profit margins, and whether sales will keep improving if promotions fade away.

While not robust compared with past holiday seasons, it beat the Minneapolis-based retailer’s guidance of flat sales and is a much better performance than in the August-through-October period. The National Retail Federation had predicted holiday sales would increase between 2.5% and 3.5%.

Target raised its holiday-quarter comparable sales forecast on Thursday, buoyed by robust shopper demand for clothing, toys and beauty products during November and December, but profit margin concerns sent its shares down nearly 3%.

Target Corp. raised its sales guidance following a better-than-expected holiday season, bolstering the company’s turnaround efforts.