A bigger-than-expected Thanksgiving turnout and weaker-than-expected Black Friday traffic still ended with $22.2 billion rung up over the four-day weekend, according to ShopperTrak, the Chicago company that tracks foot traffic at bricks-and-mortar retailers.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Retailers head into the final weeks of holiday shopping with renewed vigor, buoyed by the overwhelming evidence that shoppers are finally spending.
A bigger-than-expected Thanksgiving turnout and weaker-than-expected Black Friday traffic still ended with $22.2 billion rung up over the four-day weekend, according to ShopperTrak, the Chicago company that tracks foot traffic at bricks-and-mortar retailers. That's 1 percent better than last year's $22 billion over the same period, and it doesn't include online sales.
Initial reports suggest Cyber Monday was another record day for sales, with many retailers beginning their promotions over the weekend and extending them through Tuesday.
The National Retail Federation had predicted that 140 million people would be out shopping both in-store and online between Thursday and Sunday, including 33 million on Thanksgiving. And although spending was down from 2012, that may have been partly because so many retailers started their promotions early.
Stores have been offering "why wait 'til Black Friday?" discounts all month to take advantage of an earlier Hanukkah and compensate for the six fewer shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas. November as a whole was up 2.1 percent over last year, but it still only makes up 45 percent of holiday spending, said ShopperTrak founder and Executive Vice President Bill Martin.
And despite the naysayers who bemoaned the commercialization of Thanksgiving, Thursday turned out to a major shopping day, ringing up 11.6 percent of the total spending for the weekend, Martin said. Last year, when fewer stores were open, Thursday drew only 3.6 percent of total in-store spending.
Black Friday sales, in comparison, were down nearly 13 percent from last year, "but it will still be the biggest shopping day of the year, with $9.7 billion in sales," Martin said.
And the rest of December looks just as promising, he said. Both Christmas and "Super Saturday," the final Saturday before Christmas, couldn't be positioned better on the calendar in terms of maximizing store traffic. When Super Saturday is too far ahead of the Christmas, "it doesn't have the same sense of proximity and urgency associated with it," he said.
"And we still have eight of the top 10 shopping days in this holiday season to go," he added.
As to whether retailers will open again next Thanksgiving, Martin said: "I think the jury's still out, because while the sales were good, $2.5 billion is still approaching what a normal Thursday in November would be."
Plus, while retailers felt tremendous pressure from competitors to open on Thursday, Martin said the extra expenses could cut into already-thin margins. If stores had to shell out holiday pay or provide other incentives for employees to work that day, those are extra costs they did not have last year.
"Coupled with the fact that the deeper the discount, the more pressure on margins," retailers were spending more and nearly giving away their door-busters at the register, he said.
Martin said individual retailers will have to decide for themselves if their sales were worth opening early or staying closed. "They're going to have to give it a number of years before they decide if they're going to keep doing it," he said. Kmart, for example, opened its doors at 6 a.m. and stayed open though midnight on Friday night, and stores were still packed.
"We did see really good traffic all the way up through Friday night," he said. "I think we'll continue to see more stores open in the 5, 6 or 7 o'clock range [on Thanksgiving] before we see anybody open up earlier in the day."