US holiday shopping season off to record start

A record 247 million shoppers visited stores and websites over the four-day weekend starting on Thanksgiving. The number is up 9.2 per cent from last year, according to a survey of 4,000 shoppers released by the National Retail Federation.

They were attracted by retailers' efforts to make shopping easier, including opening stores on Thanksgiving evening, updating mobile shopping applications for smartphones and tablets, and expanding shipping and layaway options.

Americans spent more too: The average holiday shopper spent $423 over the entire weekend, up from $398 last year. Total spending over the four-day weekend totaled $59.1 billion, up 12.8 per cent from 2011.

The results for the weekend appear to show that retailers' efforts to make shopping effortless for US consumers during the holiday shopping season worked. Retailers upped the ante in order to give Americans more reasons to shop.

Stores feared that consumers might not spend because of the weak job market and worries that tax increases and budget cuts will take effect if Congress fails to reach a budget deal by January.

Retailers, which can make up to 40 per cent of their annual revenue in November and December, were hoping Thanksgiving openings and other incentives would help boost what's expected to be a difficult holiday shopping season.

The National Retail Federation estimates that overall sales in November and December will rise 4.1 per cent this year to $586.1 billion. That's more than a percentage point lower than the growth in each of the past two years, and the smallest increase since 2009, when sales were nearly flat.

Matthew Shay, president and CEO of the National Retail Federation, said retailers can be encouraged by the first weekend of the holiday shopping season. "Retailers and consumers both won this weekend, especially on Thanksgiving," he said.

Here were the trends that emerged over the weekend:

- Online wave: According to comScore, which tracks online spending, online sales rose 26 per cent to $1.04 billion on Black Friday compared with a year ago. On Thanksgiving, online sales rose 32 per cent from last year to $633 million. And online sales on Black Friday were up 26 per cent from the same day last year to $1.042 billion. It was the first time online sales on Black Friday surpassed $1 billion.

- Thanksgiving shopping: Many stores, including Toys R Us and Target, opened on Thanksgiving evening this year. No data is out yet about how much shoppers spent on that day, but it appears that consumers took advantage of the earlier start: According to the National Retail Federation's survey, the number of people who shopped on Thanksgiving rose 23.1 per cent. That compares with a 3.1 per cent increase for Black Friday.

ShopperTrak, which analyzes customer traffic at 40,000 US stores, plans to release sales data for Thanksgiving later this week, but the firm is estimating that retailers generated $700 million in sales on the holiday.

- Black Friday flop: It appears that the Thanksgiving openings may have hurt sales on the day after.

Black Friday is still expected to be the biggest shopping day of the year, but sales on that day slipped to $11.2 billion, down 1.8 per cent from last year, according to ShopperTrak. That's below ShopperTrak's estimate that Black Friday sales would rise 3.8 per cent to $11.4 billion.