Record crowds over weekend, but spending declined
Retailers’ Dilemma: A record number of shoppers turn out, but they spent less for the 1st time
By Anne d’Innocenzio, AP Retail Writer 4 hours ago
NEW YORK (AP) — Retailers got Americans into stores during the start to the holiday shopping season. Now, they’ll need to figure out how to get them to actually shop.
Target, Macy’s and other retailers offered holiday discounts in early November and opened stores on Thanksgiving Day. It was an effort to attract shoppers before Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving that traditionally kicks off the holiday shopping season.
Those tactics drew bigger crowds during the four-day Thanksgiving weekend, but failed to motivate Americans to spend.
“The economy spoke loud and clear over the past few days,” said Brian Sozzi, CEO and chief equities strategist at Belus Capital Advisors. “We are going to see an increase in markdowns.”
A record 141 million people were expected to shop in stores and online over the four-day period that ended on Sunday, up from last year’s 137 million, according to the results of a survey of nearly 4,500 shoppers conducted for The National Retail Federation.
But total spending was expected to fall for the first time ever since the trade group began tracking it in 2006, according to the survey that was released on Sunday afternoon. Over the four days, spending fell an estimated 2.9 percent to $57.4 billion.
Shoppers, on average, were expected to spend $407.02 during the four days, down 3.9 percent from last year. That would be the first decline since the 2009 holiday shopping season when the economy was just coming out of the recession.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/record-crowds-over-weekend-spending-210800981.html
