Shoppers spent a whopping $52 billion over Black Friday weekend this year, making this year’s Black Friday the largest ever by sales.
The National Retail Federation (NRF) announced the sales figure today, and also said that a record breaking 226 million shoppers visited stores and websites over the Black Friday weekend. Their definition of Black Friday weekend is from Thanksgiving Day (Thursday) through today (Sunday). Sales figures for today were estimated based on results from the last few days.
Apparently, while it may have led to lots of groaning and moaning from employees, the decision of many major chains to open at midnight paid off. According to the NRF, 24.4% of shoppers hit the stores for their midnight openings. Last year, just 9.5% of Black Friday shoppers were at midnight openings – of course, there were not as many stores opening at midnight last year, nor as much press attention to midnight openings.
The NRF also said that 51.4% of shoppers bought clothing and clothing accessories. 39.4% purchased electronic items. 32% purchased toys, 23.1% bought gift cards, 21.8% bought jewelry, and 21.3% purchased home décor.
While the economy remains poor, it looks like shoppers are a bit more motivated this year. The NRF’s survey, conducted by BIGresearch, found that the average holiday shopper spent more this year, $398.62, compared to last year’s $365.34.
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