It was an exciting shopping weekend in the USA. Half of all Americans shopped either online or off.
According to a press release from the National Retail Federation, 141 million unique shoppers went to stores over the weekend, 2 million more than last year, for a total of $57.4 billion in sales. The average spend was $407.02 from Thursday through Sunday, down from $423.55 last year. Overall, the Federation expects sales to total $602 billion for the shopping season, slightly higher than 2012, but below the growth rates seen before the 2008 recession. Additionally, this year’s Black Friday in-store total is slightly down from last year, but is attributed to Thursday sales where a number of retailers opened as early as 5 pm.
However the online total for Black Friday, which broke the $1 billion mark for the first time last year, also exceeded the 2012 figure. Over the course of the long weekend 60 million shopped online, spending 40% of their shopping budget. Black Friday is becoming Black Thanksgiving weekend. Plus Cyber Monday will likely break last year’s record of nearly $1.5 billion in sales and a record number of mobile devices used for transactions.
Read the rest of the blog post here.