Thanksgiving Day store openings siphon Black Friday sales, preliminary figures show
Saturday, November 30, 2013 Last updated: Saturday November 30, 2013, 9:19 PM
BY JOAN VERDON
STAFF WRITER
The Record
Americans spent close to $3 billion holiday shopping on Thanksgiving – nearly three times as much as last year – as widespread early store openings stole sales from Black Friday, according to data released Saturday by retail analytics firm ShopperTrak.
Sales for the two days combined rose 2.3 percent, but store traffic on Black Friday declined 11.4 percent, and sales were down 13.2 percent that day, compared to last year, according to ShopperTrak. Black Friday remains the most important day of the Thanksgiving shopping weekend, with an estimated $9.7 billion spent that day.
While the final dollar and store-traffic breakdowns for each day will not be released until Tuesday, total sales for Thursday and Friday were $12.3 billion, with more than 1 billion store visits by shoppers during the two days.
“The Thursday sales came at the expense of Black Friday,” said ShopperTrak founder Bill Martin. “It was a good two days, but if you only looked at Black Friday you would find yourself in a panic” because of the decline, Martin said.
Stores in the Northeast showed drops in traffic and sales for the combined two days, with traffic in the region down 5 percent and sales down 7 percent. Sales and traffic increased the most in the West.
