Holiday shopping held steady through the weekend after retailers saw a huge crowd of bargain shoppers buying discounted flat-panel TVs and fleece jackets on Black Friday, the traditional post-Thanksgiving Day shopping spree.
Economic worries about jobs were still apparent as shoppers stuck to their lists and focused on practical and small-ticket items for themselves and their loved ones, resulting in a mildly encouraging start to the season.
Online sales Thursday and Friday, however, rose 11 percent to $913 million, according to data released Sunday by comScore, an Internet research firm.
According to preliminary figures released Saturday by ShopperTrak, a research firm that tracks more than 50,000 outlets, sales rose 0.5 percent to $10.66 billion Friday compared with a year ago. That was on top of a 3 percent increase last year.
The National Retail Federation trade group said Sunday it is sticking to its forecast for holiday sales to decline 1 percent from last year.
A year after suffering the biggest sales decline in four decades, the nation's merchants pulled out all the stops in stores and online to keep the momentum going for the holiday weekend, further blurring the lines between their Web- and land-based businesses.
"Forget Black Friday for bricks and Cyber Monday for clicks - this year it's all about making it easy for customers to satisfy their shopping fix, ... wherever and whenever," said John Long, a retail strategist at Kurt Salmon Associates.
A more complete sales picture won't be known until Thursday, when the nation's retailers report November sales.
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement
Advertisement