Black Friday: Higher traffic, lower spend

-- Home Textiles Today, 11/29/2009 12:47:00 PM

Washington – The National Retail Federation reported “more shoppers spent less” on Black Friday.

An estimated 195 million shoppers hit stores and shopped online from Thursday through Sunday, up from 172 million last year. BigResearch, which conducted the study, projected Sunday shopping levels.

Total average spending fell 7.9% to $343.31 per person from $372.57, for total spending of about $41.2 billion.

Department stores drew a bigger percentage of shoppers than did discounters, reversing a trend that has been in place for months. Nearly half (40.4%) of shoppers visited department stores, a 12.9% increase for the channel compared to last year.

Discount stores captured 43.3% and outlet stores 7.8%. Electronics stores received visits from 29.0% of shoppers, followed by online retailers (28.5%), clothing stores (22.9%) and grocery stores (19.6%).

“Department stores have done an admirable job touting both low prices and good quality, which are important requirements for holiday shoppers on a budget,” said Tracy Mullin, NRF president and ceo.

The most purchased items included clothing (50.9%) and books (40.3%), which consumers shopped at roughly the same level they did last year. Nearly one-third (32.2%) of shoppers purchased toys, up 12.9% from last year. Other categories experiencing greater spending were sporting goods (12.6% vs. 11.4% last year), personal care or beauty items (22.4% vs. 19.0%) and gift cards (21.2% vs. 18.7%).