But there was some double-dipping.
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Janeen Price, who was shopping with her daughter in Greensboro, North Carolina, over the weekend, said she was a more serious Black Friday bargain-hunter in previous years.
Shay said more shoppers are taking advantage of discounted sales online that begin before Thanksgiving even arrives – a dynamic that has been forcing retailers to start holiday sales earlier, as well.
The NRF president said in a statement, “It is clear that the age-old holiday tradition of heading out to stores with family and friends is now equally matched in the new tradition of looking online”. “It’s no longer about one day, but a season of digital deals, and savvy online shoppers are ready to see what exclusive promotions retailers have in store for Cyber Monday before they checkout”.
Huge numbers of shoppers feasted on deals over Thanksgiving weekend, but how and when Americans did so has forever changed, as online activity exceeded store visits. But don’t worry, we won’t tell.
Sales over the four-day Thanksgiving weekend fell more than 10 percent to more than $20.4 billion, according to ShopperTrak, a retail analysis firm.
“For holiday shopping this year, it will be a plough horse moving slowly but steadily, rather than a flying reindeer”, said Brian Wesbury, chief economist with Illinois-based First Trust Portfolios.
The industry is seeing “an evolutionary change in holiday shopping by both consumers and retailers”, Shay said. But its broad conclusions added to other research showing that in-store shopping was about the same as a year ago and that online shopping had jumped, putting total sales ahead of last year. There’s a good chance it may not only beat recent Black Friday and Thanksgiving online totals, but also last year’s Cyber Monday .04 billion in sales. According to sales estimates from retail analytics provider Shoppertrak, Black Friday brick and mortar sales dropped from $11.6 billion in 2014 to $10.4 billion in 2015, while Thanksgiving sales were down from slightly over $2 billion in 2014 to $1.8 billion in 2015. This compares to 136 million people, who said in a mid-November survey by the NRF that they planned to shop over the weekend. Additionally, more than one-third of respondents said they shopped at discount and electronics stores during the holiday weekend.
As a result, NRF evolved what we have traditionally done in terms of examining the holiday weekend shopper to reflect these changing times.
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The National Retail Federation found that 51.7 percent of consumers, or 151 million people, shopped online or in stores this holiday weekend and spent an average of $299.60 each.
