Consumer Behavior

Thanksgiving holiday weekend shopping beats expectations

Photo: Adobe Stock (AI generated)

December 5, 2024

The five-day holiday shopping weekend, from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, was a busy one as an estimated 197 million shoppers went shopping, according to the annual survey from the National Rtail Federation and Prosper Insight & Analytics.

The figure is the second highest number in the survey's history after last year's record of 200.4 million, and beat NRF's initial expectations of 183.4 million shoppers, according to a press release.
"Thanksgiving weekend retains its prominence among holiday spending events and continues to play a significant role in the holiday season for both consumers and retailers," NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said in the release. "Even with this year's shortened shopping period and the multitude of early sales promotions from retailers, this past weekend exceeded expectations in terms of the sheer volume of shoppers."

A total of 126 million consumers shopped in-store, up from 121.4 million in 2023.

Online shoppers totaled 124.3 million, down from 134.2 million shoppers last year.

Black Friday remains the most popular day for both in-store and online shopping: 81.7 million consumers shopped in stores on Black Friday, up from 76.2 million last year and the highest level since the pandemic. Approximately 87.3 million shopped online, down slightly from 90.6 million in 2023.

Cyber Monday remains the second most popular day for online shopping, attracting 64.4 million consumers compared with 73.1 million in 2023. A majority, 63%, of Cyber Monday online shoppers opting to use a mobile device, up from 55% last year and the highest since NRF first started tracking this.

NRF defines the holiday season as Nov. 1 through Dec. 31 and has forecast that holiday spending is expected to reach record levels and will grow between 2.5% and 3.5% over 2023, totaling $979.5 billion to $989 billion.