American shoppers increased their spending by 16% over the five-day shopping period between Thanksgiving Day and Cyber Monday, according to new data from The Wall Street Journal that includes yesterday’s shopping.
Nearly 190 million shoppers made purchases during the period, a 14% increase over the previous year, and more of them shopped online than in stores, data from the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics show.
The NRF survey found 124 million people shopped in stores while about 142 million shopped online. Black Friday drew more online shoppers than Cyber Monday for the first time.
The NRF has forecast retail sales would rise in a range of 3.8% to 4.2%—to about $730 billion—for the period from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31.
Shoppers spent an average of $362 on holiday items during the five-day period that ended Monday, compared with $313 a year ago. Read the full story.
