A surge in the number of people heading for the stores was offset by a fall in individual spending, suggesting that shoppers were tightly focused on hunting out bargains both in stores and online to make their money go further.
The National Retail Federation estimated that while the number of shoppers visiting stores over the holiday weekend rose 13 per cent to 195m, average spending dropped more than 7 per cent to $343.31. The retail industry group said overall spending for the weekend was up only 0.5 per cent at $41.2bn.
Tracy Mullin, NRF chief executive, said: “While retailers are encouraged by the number of Americans who shopped over the weekend, they know they have their work cut out for them to keep people coming back through Christmas.”
Read more here: US retailers hope for holiday surge