Weekend shoppers’ count nears 200 million

Shoppers at the El Remate Discount store on Black Friday in El Paso, Texas on Nov. 25, 2022. The holiday shopping season is the most important time in the retail industry, a period when many companies make a significant amount of their money for the year. (Justin Hamel/The New York Times)
Shoppers at the El Remate Discount store on Black Friday in El Paso, Texas on Nov. 25, 2022. The holiday shopping season is the most important time in the retail industry, a period when many companies make a significant amount of their money for the year. (Justin Hamel/The New York Times)

A record 196.7 million consumers shopped in stores and online over the five-day Black Friday weekend, according to a retail survey released Tuesday.

That’s up 10%, by nearly 17 million shoppers, over last year’s 179 million, the survey by the National Retail Federation and research firm Prosper Insights & Analytics found. This year’s number exceeded the groups’ expectations by more than 30 million shoppers.

Over the weekend, 97% of shoppers made Christmas-related purchases, spending an average of $325.44 on Christmas items over the period between Black Friday and Cyber Monday. That’s 8% more than the average spent last year.

These consumers spent an average of $229.21 specifically on gifts, with the rest going toward decorations and food.

The researchers did not yet have a total of the amount spent.

Shoppers were clearly ready to return to stores this year, said Matthew Shay, president and chief executive officer of the National Retail Federation. Nearly 123 million people shopped in stores, he said, compared with 105 million last year. That’s up 17% over the same period in 2021.

However, the number of online shoppers grew only incrementally, by 130 million, or close to 2%.

About 90% of shoppers felt that retailers’ deals and promotions were better than last year’s, Shay said.

While some researchers may say retail sales gains were due to inflation, Shay said, the historic increase in the number of shoppers means it’s consumer demand that’s driving growth.

“So Thanksgiving weekend, which once upon a time really was the kickoff of the Christmas shopping season, is now a bit more of a midway point or maybe the beginning of the end of the shopping season as opposed to the first true day,” Shay said.

“Nevertheless, we know that this was a big weekend and Black Friday was a very big day, and this continues to be an incredibly important bellwether reflecting both the consumer psyche and the strength of our economy,” he said.

Both companies felt the weekend’s stellar spending wouldn’t cut into December sales.

Phil Rist, Prosper Insights & Analytics’ executive vice president of strategy, said that on average 47% of shoppers surveyed were only halfway done with their Christmas shopping by the end of the five-day period, “leaving plenty of room for additional purchases in the remaining weeks of the year.” Rist said the top-selling gifts purchased were clothing and accessories, bought by 50% of those surveyed; toys, 31%; gift cards, 27%; video games and other media, 24%; food and candy, 23%; and electronics, also 23%.

The National Retail Federation defines the Christmas shopping season as running from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31.

The industry trade group still forecasts overall retail sales for the season to grow between 6% and 8% over 2021, or between $942.6 billion and $960.4 billion.

Adobe Analytics, another consumer research firm, said shoppers spent $9 billion on Black Friday alone, up from $8.92 billion on that day in 2021. On Cyber Monday, spending reached $11 billion.

Unlike the National Retail Federation, Adobe Analytics lists electronics as the top-selling category of the shopping weekend.

According to Salesforce, online sales for the weekend totaled $67.5 billion — 9% over last year.

As for payments of online orders, Salesforce said 65% of purchases were made with credit cards and 16% with PayPal. However, the payment type with the fastest adoption rate in 2022 was Apple Pay, which grew 63%. PayPal usage fell by 6% for the year.

The promotional period from Thanksgiving through Monday was nothing like 2021, when supply-chain snarls prompted people to shop earlier and retailers to skimp on discounts. This year stores were saddled with a glut of unsold merchandise, forcing them to offer sharply reduced prices to lure bargain-hunters looking to offset higher food and fuel costs.

“With oversupply and a softening consumer spending environment, retailers made the right call this season to drive demand through heavy discounting,” said Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights. “It spurred online spending to levels that were higher than expected, and reinforced e-commerce as a major channel to drive volume and capture consumer interest.” Adobe said the surge in consumer spending online over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend was driven by demand, not simply inflation. The firm said prices across 18 product categories it tracks have been almost flat in recent months. Adobe doesn’t adjust its data for inflation but said that, even if online price gains were factored in, “there would still be growth in underlying consumer demand.” The National Retail Federation conducted its survey of 3,326 adult consumers between Nov. 23 and Nov. 27. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.8 percentage points.


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