Black Friday remains busiest shopping day: NRF – Brand Innovators

Retailers counted 197 million shoppers during the five day Thanksgiving weekend, according to a new report from the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics. 

The figure is the second highest number in the survey’s history after last year’s record of 200.4 million, and was much larger than the NRF’s initial expectations of 183.4 million shoppers.

“We expect a very healthy holiday season, consumers are spending and retailers are feeling optimistic about the season,” said Matthew Shay, president and CEO at NRF, during a press conference.

The study tracked retail sales both in store and online during the five-day holiday weekend from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday. Shay noted that consumers were “thoughtful and deliberate in their spending patterns” and were proceeding “carefully” but also said that this turnout indicated a healthy holiday season.

Black Friday remains the most popular day for both in-store and online shopping with 81.7 million consumers shopping in stores on Black Friday, up from 76.2 million last year and the highest level since the pandemic. Around 87.3 million shopped online, a dip from 90.6 million in 2023. Cyber Monday remains the second most popular day for online shopping, with 64.4 million consumers down from 73.1 million in 2023. 

Shay noted that with Thanksgiving later this year, many retailers began promotions earlier in the season and 38% of holiday shoppers took advantage of deals during the week leading up to Thanksgiving. Still, 52% of consumers said they still have half of their shopping left to do at this point.

Department stores were the most popular shopping destinations during the five day with 42% of consumers going to these stores, 37% of shoppers going to clothing and accessories stores and 32% visiting discount stores. Eighty-six percent of shoppers purchased gifts during the period, spending $235, up $8 more than 2023.

The top gifts purchased during this period included clothing and accessories bought by almost half of shoppers, toys bought by 31% of shoppers and gift cards, purchased by 27% of shoppers.

NRF expects the holiday season to see a 2.5-3.5% increase in sales over 2023, totaling $979.5-989 billion in 2024.

“Overall this was a very strong holiday weekend and it is a positive indicator of the holiday season,” said Phil Rist, executive vice president of strategy at Prosper during the press conference.