With many retailers opening earlier than ever , consumers turned out in force – and sometimes with force – on Black Friday and throughout the post-Thanksgiving weekend, setting a new record for holiday sales. Here, a by-the-numbers look at this weekend’s big spending:
226 million
Shoppers who hit stores and websites over Black Friday weekend – a record, according to a survey of 3,826 consumers done for the National Retail Federation. Last year, 212 million consumers went shopping over the same weekend
$52.4 billion
Estimated total spending over the holiday weekend, according to the NRF, up 16 percent from last year
$11.4 billion
Retail sales on Black Friday alone, another record, and up 6.6 percent from last year, according to ShopperTrak
28.7 million
Shoppers who visited stores and websites on Thanksgiving Day, up from 22.2 million last year. “The appetite for these early openings is only getting stronger among holiday shoppers, and retailers did a great job providing Americans just what they wanted this weekend – the ability to shop on Black Friday without having to get out of bed before dawn,” Phil Rist of survey company BIGresearch said in a prepared statement.
$398.62
Estimated spending by the average holiday shopper, up from $365.34 last year, according to the NRF
37.8
Percentage of that spending done online, for an average of $150.53 per shopper
48.7
Percentage of shoppers who went to department stores
37.5
Percentage of shoppers who went to discount retailers
51.4
Percentage of shoppers who bought clothing and accessories
39.4
Percentage of shoppers who bought electronics
32.6
Percentage of shoppers who bought toys
More than 9,000
People who waited outside the Macy’s flagship store in New York City’s Herald Square for a midnight Friday opening
$2
Price of waffle irons that set off a frenzy – or a “near-riot” as some have called it – among shoppers at a Walmart near Little Rock, Ark.,
$35
Price of smartphones that drew a stampede of shoppers, injuring a security guard at a Rome, NY, Walmart
20
People injured at a Los Angeles area Walmart when a woman eager to buy an Xbox 360 reportedly pepper sprayed her fellow shoppers
