Buyers cautious as Black Friday arrives

Holiday sales at small businesses in Massachusetts during the five-day shopping streak starting Black Friday are expected to grow marginally compared to the total haul of purchases seen last November and December, according to the Retailers Association of Massachusetts.

A 1% increase in local holiday shopping comes as the National Retail Federation predicted some 182 million people are planning to shop in-store and online from Thanksgiving day through Cyber Monday, the highest estimate since the organization started tracking data in 2017.

Retailers Association of Massachusetts President Jon Hurst said local projections, which come from a survey of the group’s 4,000 members, are not “one of the more optimistic” outlooks.

“For all intents and purposes, it’s flat,” Hurst told the Herald Wednesday. “Consumer confidence is down a little bit right now, a reflection of the continued effects of inflation and also of … interest rates. But it’s funny, because over the years, sometimes what you ask the consumer, or even what you ask small businesses, sometimes they’re a little more conservative than what it actually ends up being.”

The strain of inflation on families and the increased costs on sellers, including inventory, wages, borrowing costs, and energy, are also raising profitability questions for local small businesses who are experiencing sales levels similar to last year, the Retailers Association of Massachusetts said.

The same pressures are also likely affecting how much consumers are willing to spend this year as lower savings and increased credit card debt persist.

The Thanksgiving weekend marks some of the busiest shopping days of the year, said National Retail Federation President and CEO Matthew Shay. Businesses spend months preparing for the few days that are often marked with frantic shoppers packing or trampling into large stores.

More than three-quarters of shoppers nationally plan to purchase during the five-day Thanksgiving holiday weekend this year, a 69% increase from 2019, or pre-pandemic, according to the National Retail Federation.

Black Friday is still the most popular day to shop, with more than 130 million estimated customers expected to head out to stores, the National Retail Federation said. Cyber Monday comes second, with 71 million shoppers expected to purchase goods, the organization said.

Business groups are also promoting “Small Business Saturday,” an annual event that falls on the first Saturday after Thanksgiving, or Nov. 25 in 2023. The event has been held every weekend after Thanksgiving since its creation following the 2009 recession.

The National Federation of Independent Business said customers spent $17.9 billion across the country on “Small Business Saturday” in 2022.

Materials from the Associated Press were used in this report.