Thanksgiving Weekend Shopping

We didn't wake up at midnight on Black Friday to wait in line with crowds this year. However, we went to Premium Outlet Stores on Friday afternoon and Union Square during the weekend. You are surrounded by holiday music, beautiful lighting decorations, and giant Christmas tress. Open space ice-skating in the middle of the Union Square sure lure many tourists. There are a lot of people; however, less than half of them carrying bags in their hands. I guess most of the people are just buying things in necessity rather than nonessential goods even with huge discounts all over the stores. Shopping behaviors have definitely been changed, and shoppers are more cautious. I think we are still going to see a weaker holiday season this year as economic future continues grim with rising unemployment rate, dropping housing values, tighter credit market and depressing stock market.

Shoppers hold their purchase on items they can wait; they trim their holiday shopping budgets only towards children. Sales will be steeper when Christmas is closer.

According to Calculated Risk: NFR: Holiday Season Off to Energetic Start

Though the holiday season is far from over, retailers across the country are breathing a collective sigh of relief after shoppers headed to stores and websites in droves over the weekend. According to the National Retail Federation's 2008 Black Friday Weekend survey, more than 172 million shoppers visited stores and websites over Black Friday weekend*, up from 147 million shoppers last year.

Shoppers spent an average of $372.57 this weekend*, up 7.2 percent over last year’s $347.55. Total spending reached an estimated $41.0 billion.

Friday was clearly the busiest day of the weekend with 73.6 million people hitting stores and websites for doorbuster sales. Though traffic did subside after Friday, retailers were also buoyed by two-day sales as 56.9 million people shopped on Saturday, up from 48.3 million last year, while another 26.2 million people planned to shop on Sunday. Thanksgiving Day also continues to increase in importance as the number of people who shopped on Thursday was up 48 percent over last year (16.2 million people vs. 10.9 million people).

Bargains appeared to be so good that people have more of a jumpstart on shopping. According to the findings, Americans have completed more slightly shopping than they had one year ago (39.3% vs. 36.4%), indicating that traffic and sales over the next several weeks will moderate.

NRF continues to project that holiday sales will rise 2.2 percent this year to $470.4 billion.

*Spending data includes Thursday, Friday, Saturday and projected spending for Sunday.