Shoppers spent almost $28 billion over the weekend, a 22 percent bump over last year’s Thanksgiving weekend and a strong kickoff to the four-week holiday shopping season.
That’s the estimate from the National Retail Federation, which conducted its annual “Black Friday” shopping survey of more than 4,200 people with BIGresearch, a consumer research firm.
An estimated 145 million shoppers flooded stores as well as the Internet to take advantage of heavy discounting offered by retailers, the retail trade association said. The average shopper spent almost $303 over the weekend, according to the survey.
Activity should stay strong Monday, according to analysts, as workers return to the office and others settle in front of their computers at home to go online and do more shopping. Almost 59 million consumers are expected to shop over the Internet on what has been dubbed “Cyber Monday.”