Holiday buying up 13%

Weekend saw more shoppers

American shoppers spent nearly 13 percent more during this year’s four- day Thanksgiving weekend than they did last year, heading to stores and jumping online to push Black Friday beyond a one-day extravaganza.

Spending rose to $59.1 billion from $52.4 billion last year, a 12.8 percent increase, the National Retail Federation said in a statement. The jump occurred even as Chicago-based researcher ShopperTrak observed a 1.8 percent decline in sales on Black Friday, the traditional start to the shopping season.

Retailers have turned Black Friday into a week’s worth of deals and discounts, with ever-earlier openings and online offers. On Thanksgiving Day, once reserved for family gatherings, more than 35 million shoppers made purchases in stores and online, up from 29 million last year, the retail federation said. Even socalled Cyber Monday is losing its distinction, with Best

Buy and J.C. Penney starting some Web-based deals Sunday.

“Retailers have now integrated the entire shopping experience,” said Matt Shay, president and chief executive officer of the retail federation, on a conference call Sunday. “Every day is Cyber Monday. Every day is Black Friday.”

A record 247 million shoppers visited stores and websites over the four-day weekend starting with Thanksgiving, up 9.2 percent from last year, according to a survey of 4,000 shoppers that was conducted by research firm BIG-insight for the Washington, D.C.-based retail federation.

Customers each spent $423 on average over the weekend, up 6.3 percent from last year, the federation said.

The 12.8 percent jump in total spending suggests some sales may have been pulled from December and that retailers will have to keep up the promotions to avoid a lull, experts said.

“Retailers are going to have to get creative, such as price discounts or special events, to keep the customer engaged,” Patricia Edwards, chief investment officer for Bellevue, Washington-based Trutina Financial, said by telephone. Her firm owns Wal-Mart and Starbucks stock among more than $300 million in assets.

Online shopping on Black Friday rose 26 percent to exceed $1 billion for the first time, research firm Com-Score said Sunday. Sales are forecast to rise 12 percent to $96 billion this year, a rate three times that of total sales.

Online sales rose 16 percent in the first 23 days of November to $13.7 billion, with sales on Thanksgiving Day increasing 32 percent to $633 million, Com-Score said.

ShopperTrak, which analyzes customer traffic at 40,000 U.S. stores, plans to release data for Thanksgiving later this week, but the firm is estimating that retailers generated $700 million in sales on the holiday.

Black Friday sales totaled $11.2 billion, down 1.8 percent from last year, according to ShopperTrak. That’s below its estimate that Black Friday sales would rise 3.8 percent to $11.4 billion.

Karen MacDonald, a spokesman at Taubman Centers, which operates 28 malls across the country, said Thanksgiving openings cut into Black Friday business for the industry.

“It was a different feeling,” she said. “It was a good Black Friday, but I don’t think it was great.”

Caitlyn Maguire, 21, was one of the shoppers who took advantage of all the new conveniences of shopping this year. Maguire, who lives in New York, began buying Thanksgiving night at Target’s East Harlem store. During the two-hour wait in line, she also bought items from her smart phone on Amazon.com. On Friday, she picked up a few toys at Toys R Us. And on Saturday she was out at the stores again.

“I’m basically done,” said Maguire, who spent about $400 over the weekend.

Retailers upped the ante in order to give Americans more reasons to shop at a time when some of them are fearful about the weak job market and the potential that a wave of tax increases and budget cuts known as the “fiscal cliff” will take effect if Congress fails to reach a budget deal by January.

The retail federation said Sunday that it may revise its forecast for the Christmas season as more is known about any potential budget deal. It has predicted Christmas sales, including online, will rise 4.1 percent to about $586.1 billion this year, compared with a 5.6 percent gain in 2011.

Allan Schweber, 56, a homebuilder who lives in Bethesda, Md., said he planned to spend about the same amount this year as last — several hundred dollars — on clothes, electronics and toys.

“I expect taxes will go up for everyone next year,” Schweber said. “Maybe I am holding back a little.” Information for this article was contributed by Chris Burritt and Cotten Timberlake of Bloomberg News and by Anne D’Innocenzio, Rodrigue Ngowi, Sarah Skidmore and Juan Carolos Llorca of The Associated Press.