Around 196.7 million people shopped Thanksgiving weekend

Over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, from Thanksgiving Day to Cyber Monday, around 196.7 million Americans shopped in stores and online, higher than the previous year, according to the National Retail Federation or NRF.

Black Friday continued to be the most favored day for in-store as well as online shopping during the five-day holiday period.

As per the annual survey released by the NRF and Prosper Insights & Analytics, consumers spent an average of 325.44 dollars on holiday-related purchases, up from 301.27 dollars in 2021. Most of it, towards gifts.

The total number of shoppers in 2022 grew by nearly 17 million from 2021.

Among the 3,326 adult consumers in the survey, around 76 percent said they shopped over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, up from 70 percent in 2021.

There was significant growth in in-store shoppers, with more than 122.7 million people visiting bricks-and-mortar stores over the period, 17 percent higher than the prior year. Online shoppers were 130.2 million, a 2 percent increase over last year.

During Black Friday, around 72.9 million consumers opted in-store shopping, higher than prior year's 66.5 million. Meanwhile, roughly 87.2 million consumers shopped online during the day, in line with 2021.

There were 63.4 million in-store shoppers during Saturday after Thanksgiving, up from 51 million last year, the majority of whom shopped specifically for Small Business Saturday.

Similar to last year, 77 million people shopped online on Cyber Monday, and 59 percent of them used their mobile device, up from 52 percent in 2021.

The most preferred means of shopping destinations were online, department stores, grocery stores and supermarkets, clothing and accessories stores and discount stores.

Around 90 percent of Thanksgiving weekend shoppers felt the deals were the same or better than last year, NRF noted.

NRF, which defines the holiday season as November 1 through December 31, has forecast that retail sales in 2022 will grow between 6 percent and 8 percent from last year to between 942.6 billion and 960.4 billion dollars.(DPA)