Consumers to Spend Thanksgiving Shopping

Americans are planning to do some big holiday shopping during the Thanksgiving weekend, according to NRF’s Thanksgiving Weekend Expectations survey.

Six in 10 (61.1 percent) say they will or may shop either Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday, which equates to more than 140.1 million unique shoppers. Expectations are similar to last year’s preliminary survey results of 140.3 million.

Specifically, 67.6 million holiday shoppers (29.5 percent) say they will shop, down slightly from 69.4 million who planned to do so last year, and 72.5 million (31.6 percent) say they will wait and see if the deals are worth it before they decide, up 2 percent over last year’s 71 million “maybe” shoppers.

“Consumers today want more than just the discounts they’ve been showered with since the start of the recession; they want exclusive offerings and a good reason to spend their discretionary budgets,” says Matthew Shay, president and chief executive officer, NRF. “We could witness a sea change this holiday season as consumers’ reliance on extremely deep discounts over the biggest shopping weekend of the year shifts to more of a wait-and-see mentality around what retailers will be offering on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday. We are positive retailers have a few tricks up their sleeve that will draw their customers to their stores and websites, deciding the deals are worth it after all.”

Of the 61.1 percent who will or may shop in stores and online over the weekend, 18.3 percent (25.6 million) say they will check out retailers’ Thanksgiving Day deals and shop Thursday, down from the preliminary 23.5 percent last year; 74 percent of those who plan to shop on Thanksgiving Day say they shopped on Thanksgiving Day last year. 

Additionally, more than two-thirds (68.2 percent) will shop on Black Friday (95.5 million), two in five (42.9 percent) will shop on Saturday (60 million) and one in five (21.6 percent) will shop on Sunday (30.3 million).