Retail sales on Black Friday, the traditional kick off of the Christmas buying season, grew by 6.6% compared with the day after Thanksgiving last year, and a huge 16.4% for the four day weekend including Thanksgiving (source).
Spending per shopper increased 9.1% , the biggest increase since 2006 (source).
Part of the reason for the increase is that 226 million shoppers visited stores and websites over the weekend, compared with 212 million last year (source).
Despite some backlash against earlier store openings on Thanksgiving, the trend is sure to accelerate due to the response from shoppers, according to National Retail Federation spokeswoman Ellen Davis. “Consumers vote with their feet and vote with their wallets,” she says. “Midnight is now the magic hour for Black Friday shopping.”
Online spending increased by 26% over last year, according to market-research firm comStore Inc., which observes the buying patterns of 1 million online shoppers and extrapolates their statistics to the overall US population.
Sales figures included both in-store and online sales Thursday through Sunday, but did not include “Cyber Monday”. The line is blurring between “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday” as more and more people choose to make purchases online before, during and after Black Friday.