Black Friday 2008: Official NRF Shopping Results

From the National Retail Federation's 2008 Black Friday Weekend survey, conducted by BIGresearch:

More than 172 million shoppers visited stores and websites over Black Friday weekend, up from 147 million shoppers last year*

Shoppers spent an average of $372.57 this weekend*, up 7.2 percent over last year’s $347.55. Total spending reached an estimated $41.0 billion.

Friday was clearly the busiest day of the weekend with 73.6 million people hitting stores and websites for door buster sales. Though traffic did subside after Friday, retailers were also buoyed by two-day sales as 56.9 million people shopped on Saturday, up from 48.3 million last year, while another 26.2 million people planned to shop on Sunday. Thanksgiving Day also continues to increase in importance as the number of people who shopped on Thursday was up 48 percent over last year (16.2 million people vs. 10.9 million people).

Those who shopped on Black Friday lived by the adage that the early bird catches the worm. The survey found that 23.3 percent of shoppers were at stores by 5 a.m. while more than half (57.6%) were at stores by 9 a.m. Bargains appeared to be so good that people have more of a jumpstart on shopping.

According to the findings, Americans have completed slightly more shopping than they had one year ago (39.3 percent vs. 36.4 percent), indicating that traffic and sales over the next several weeks will moderate.

Where they shopped:

54.7 percent of this weekend’s shoppers visited discount stores
43.0 percent shopped at a traditional department store
36.0 percent shopped at specialty stores
34.0 percent shopped online

What they bought:

50.9 percent of Black Friday weekend shoppers purchased clothing and accessories
39.0 percent bought books, DVDs, CDs and video games
35.9 percent purchased consumer electronics
28.5 percent purchased toys
18.7 percent of shoppers purchased a gift card

NRF continues to project that holiday sales will rise 2.2 percent this year to $470.4 billion.

About the Survey:

The NRF 2008 Black Friday Weekend survey was designed to gauge consumer behavior and shopping trends related to the winter holidays. NRF defines the weekend as sales from Thursday, November 27 to Sunday, November 30. The survey, which polled 3,370 consumers, was conducted for NRF by BIGresearch from November 27-29, 2008. The consumer poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.7 percent. http://www.nrf.org

*Spending data includes Thursday, Friday, Saturday and projected spending for Sunday.

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KIZER & BENDER say: Clearly, consumers are not finished with their holiday shopping, but you have to give them a reason to visit YOUR store, and that reason doesn't necessarily mean deeply discounted merchandise. Put your store on shoppers' radar with holiday events and promotions. See our November 30 post below for ideas on how to you can make this happen. But don't wait too long! There are six less shopping days this year between Thanksgiving and Christmas; and those six days can have a huge impact on your holiday sales goal.