Retailers kick off holiday season with a bang

Retail sales are being buoyed by a booming economy as evidenced by sales data from the first full weekend of the 2018 holiday shopping season. Retailers – online and brick and mortar combined – rang up well over $30 billion in sales this past weekend, according to preliminary data from several sources.

Yesterday, on Cyber Monday, ecommerce sites made $7.9 billion in sales, an increase of 19.3 percent over sales totals for Cyber Monday 2017, reported Adobe Analytics, which keeps tabs on online sales. But many consumers didn't wait until Cyber Monday to start online shopping sprees. Adobe noted that ecommerce sites pulled in $3.7 billion on Thanksgiving Day, and a record $6.22 billion on Black Friday, the traditional start of holiday buying season.

While many consumers were shopping online, that didn't stop hordes from visiting merchants in malls and on Main Street. In fact, total spending at independent retailers and restaurants on Small Business Saturday reached a record high $17.8 billion, according to data compiled by American Express Co. and the National Federation of Independent Businesses. Small business owners expect on average that 29 percent of their total annual sales will take place during the holiday shopping season, according to an AmEX-NFIB survey.

Overall holiday spend on the rise

Black Friday remains the single biggest shopping day, but detailed data on sales at brick-and-mortar stores from that date is not yet available.

A report issued today by the National Retail Federation revealed that 165 million Americans shopped at brick-and-mortar stores and online over the long weekend, with the average shopper spending $313.29 on gifts and other holiday items. The biggest spenders were older millennials and Gen Xers (35- to 44-year-olds) who spent an average $413.05 between Thanksgiving Day and Cyber Monday, the NRF said.

Top purchases over the weekend included apparel (purchased by 57 percent of consumers polled by the NRF), toys (34 percent), books and video games (29 percent), electronics (26 percent) and gift cards (20 percent). The trade group tapped Prosper Insights and Analytics to survey over 3,000 consumers to assess spending trends.

Overall, U.S. consumer spending this holiday season is expected to rise by between 4.3 and 4.8 percent over 2017 spending, and will total between $717.45 billion and $720.89 billion, according to NRF estimates.

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