Black Friday Sales Down 13.2% on Year to $9.7B, Says ShopperTrak

(IDEX Online News) – U.S. retail sales on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, dropped 13.2 percent on last year to $9.74 billion, according to retail monitoring firm ShopperTrak.

Meanwhile, the National Retail Federation (NRF) said there was a slight rise to 141 million in the number of people who shopped at least once during the holiday weekend, up from 139 million last year. However, total spending for the four-day period, which includes Black Friday, was projected to be 2.8 percent down on the year at $57.4 billion, from $59.1 billion over the same weekend last year.

"Retailers were pretty successful in drawing the consumers into the stores on Thursday, but Thursday's sales came at the expense of Black Friday's numbers,” said ShopperTrak founder Bill Martin, whose company counts shopper numbers at around 40,000 American stores.

The fall in Black Friday sales was the second consecutive annual decline, after sales slipped on the same day in 2012 by 1.8 percent to $11.2 billion. However, it was still the biggest shopping day last year, according to ShopperTrak, and the research firm is projecting that Black Friday will remain the best shopping day of the year for the tenth year running.

Meanwhile, the NRF believes heavy discounting hit U.S. retail sales during the Thanksgiving weekend. "Retailers will continue to aggressively promote their in-store and online offerings, looking to entice today's very budget-conscious and value-focused shopper," said NRF Chief Executive Matthew Shay.

And the shorter holiday period this year, with six fewer shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas compared with last year, led retailers to start cutting prices earlier than usual which may have brought many sales forward to the first part of last week.

The Thanksgiving weekend is critical for U.S. retailers since it generates around 30 percent of sales and almost 40 percent of annual profits.