Thanksgiving Holiday Weekend Brings in Near Record Number of Shoppers – Hardware Retailing

This year’s Thanksgiving weekend sales brought in an estimated 197 million shoppers, according to a survey released by the National Retail Federation (NRF) and Prosper Insights & Analytics.

The number of shoppers this year surpassed NRF’s expected estimate of 183.4 million. Consumers shopped both in-store and online, with 126 million customers hitting the stores in person and 124.3 million shopping online.

“Thanksgiving weekend retains its prominence among holiday spending events and continues to play a significant role in the holiday season for both consumers and retailers,” says Matthew Shay, NRF president and CEO. “Even with this year’s shortened shopping period and the multitude of early sales promotions from retailers, this past weekend exceeded expectations in terms of the sheer volume of shoppers.”

As usual, Black Friday brought in the most foot traffic for in-store and online shopping, followed closely by the Saturday after Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday. The majority of shoppers bought holiday gifts, with the top categories listed as clothing and accessories, toys, gift cards, food and candy and personal care or beauty products.

Throughout the 2024 holiday season, which NRF defines as November 1st through December 31st, sales are expected to reach anywhere between $979.5 billion and $989 billion, 2.5% to 3.5% more than 2023.