Shoppers flocked to malls and spent record sums online over the Thanksgiving weekend, starting the holiday shopping season off at a robust clip. A record 247 million people visited stores or shopped online, and total spending hit an estimated $59.1 billion, 13 percent more than last year. Online spending on Black Friday alone topped $1 billion for the first time. Cyber Monday sales also set a new record, jumping 20 percent over last year to $1.5 billion. Some large retailers opened on Thanksgiving Day to entice shoppers with doorbuster deals. Michelle Huff lined up outside a St. Louis–area Toys R Us at 1:30 p.m. on Thanksgiving for the store’s 8 p.m. opening. “It cuts into family time,” she said, but shopping early is “a tradition.”
Expanding Black Friday sales into Thanksgiving isn’t a smart move for retailers, said Brad Tuttle in Time.com. Store foot traffic was up on Friday over last year while in-store sales were slightly down, “giving credence to the theory that many shoppers were there just for the purposes of browsing” and checking out goods they would buy online later.
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