Retail survey: More holiday shoppers in stores, online

Black Friday may not attract lines of customers wrapped around buildings as in years past, but overall, the number of holiday shoppers who went to stores and made purchases online this year nearly broke records.
Before the five-day Thanksgiving weekend shopping period – from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday – the National Retail Federation had forecast that 183.4 million consumers would shop in stores and online.
The number who shopped exceeded the trade group’s expectations “fairly dramatically with 197 million consumers, who shopped throughout the five-day weekend,” Matthew Shay, CEO and president of the NRF said during a telephone news conference held Tuesday to report the results of its survey conducted with Prosper Insights & Analytics.
The 197 million shoppers represent 75% of the U.S. adult population and 14 million shoppers more than the NRF anticipated, said Shay. It is also the second-highest number since the NRF started tracking the numbers a few years ago, Shay said, and almost as high as last year’s record of 200.4 million consumers.
The five-day Thanksgiving shopping period “is a very important holiday weekend,” Shay said. “It’s an emotional time. It’s usually a very good indicator of the overall health of the consumer and the economy.”
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“It might be even more important to consumers than it was before the pandemic,” he added.
During the last three years, 21 million more consumers turned out on average over the Thanksgiving shopping weekend than in the years leading up to the pandemic from 2017 to 2019, he said.
Even with lingering inflation, Shay said, “We expect a very healthy holiday season: Consumers are spending, retailers are feeling positive about the holiday season.”
Shoppers opted for convenience both in-store and online throughout the weekend. A total of 126 million consumers shopped in-store, up from 121.4 million in 2023. Online shoppers totaled 124.3 million, down from 134.2 million shoppers last year.
Higher-income households were significantly more likely to shop online, said Shay, with 60% of households earning more than $100,000 a year opting to shop online. Just 40% of households earning $50,000 a year shopped online.
Value-conscious consumers are shopping more in person at discount stores, 32%, up from 28% last year, Shay said.
“The higher income households have a greater propensity to be online and households at different income levels tend to be out shopping, looking for that deal in person more often and that accounts, we think, for why there was such a record number in terms of the turnout in store this year,” he said.
Shay said he also thinks the return to in-store shopping “is reflective of that phenomenon since the pandemic: individuals, people, families, friends, really missed the opportunity to be together, socializing, creating an experience during the several years of the pandemic, and that is why these numbers have come back so strongly – that, combined with the great deals.
“People really are out there shopping and so the in-store foot traffic was very good,” he said.
Black Friday remains the most popular shopping day for both in-store and online shopping. The NRF survey found 81.7 million consumers shopped in stores on Black Friday, up from 76.2 million last year and the highest level since the pandemic. Approximately 87.3 million shopped online, down slightly from 90.6 million in 2023.  
Cyber Monday remains the second most popular day for online shopping, with 64.4 million consumers compared with 73.1 million in 2023. The NRF said the online event continues to evolve, with a majority (63%) of Cyber Monday online shoppers saying they used their mobile devices for purchases. That is up from 55% last year and the highest rate since NRF started tracking it.  
Adobe Analytics, which only monitors online spending, reported different results, saying Cyber Monday online sales outpaced Black Friday.
Adobe said consumers spent $10.8 billion on Black Friday, up 10.2% from the previous year. Shoppers spent $10.9 billion over the weekend of Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, a bump of 5.8% from last year’s total.
But Adobe said Tuesday that consumers spent $13.3 billion on Cyber Monday, up 7.3% from a year ago and surpassing Adobe’s initial projection of $13.2 billion. In the peak hours of 8 p.m. to 10 p.m., consumers spent $15.8 million every minute.
Adobe expects the full holiday season from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31 to hit $240.8 billion, up 8.4% from last year.
The NRF study also looked at shopping data for Saturday, increasingly known as Small Business Saturday. This year was the second highest for in-store shopping on post-Thanksgiving Saturday with 61.1 million consumers going to stores.
Shay with the NRF also said that while some other studies may report that in-store shopping is down and online shopping is up, the trade group’s results are slightly different because they use a different methodology. Some other surveys measure sales dollars. NRF and Prosper’s surveys track the number of individual unique shoppers.
“We know that the higher income households have a greater propensity to spend online and when they do, they spend more,” he said. “So that would account for the distinction between the numbers in our survey being down.”
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According to the NRF survey of shoppers, the top shopping destinations during Thanksgiving shopping weekend were:
Consumers focused on picking up holiday gifts, said Phil Rist, executive vice president of strategy for Prosper, which completed the survey.
The survey found that 86% of shoppers during the five-day period purchased gifts, spending $235 on average, which is $8 more than in 2023.
The top gifts purchased during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend were:
Consumers said that “their purchases were specifically driven by sales and promotions, Rist said. And many said free shipping convinced them to make a purchase they were hesitant about.”
The slightly lower number of shoppers compared to last year’s Thanksgiving holiday makes sense, said Shay, since there are five fewer days in the shopping season with Thanksgiving falling later on the calendar. Many shoppers said they started their shopping before Black Friday, which is consistent with trends and previous shopper surveys, he said.
Many national retailers like Amazon, Walmart and others also started their Black Friday sales early.
There are five fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, but shoppers surveyed said they had been shopping earlier, said Rist. Thirty-eight percent of shoppers said they took advantage of sales during the week before Thanksgiving weekend. Another 22% said they shopped two weeks beforehand.
Two studies in September indicated that shoppers would get an early start on their holiday shopping, as previously reported by USA TODAY.
A Gartner Inc. study said 32% of consumers planned to do their holiday shopping between July and October. A Bankrate study in September said 48% of shoppers would begin their holiday shopping by Halloween.
Still, with Black Friday and Cyber Monday past us, more than half of the shoppers, or 52% said they still have shopping left to do, said Rist.
“It’s truly a holiday season halftime,” he said.
The NRF said it defines the holiday season as Nov. 1 through Dec. 31 and has forecast that holiday spending is expected to reach record levels and would grow by 2.5% to 3.5% over 2023, totaling $979.5 billion to $989 billion. 
Betty Lin-Fisher is a consumer reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at [email protected] or follow her on X, Facebook or Instagram @blinfisher. Sign up for our free The Daily Money newsletter, which will include consumer news on Fridays, here.