NEW YORK (AP) – With Black Friday having stretched into a November full of deals, stores will be stepping it up as holiday shopping begins in earnest.
It’s been a tough year for many retailers. Several well-known chains have filed for bankruptcy protection and thousands of stores have closed. Amazon is going into the holiday season with its largest ever store presence, and plans to offer deals online every day from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday. Stores are trying to step up their game online and in person to attract customers who are moving back and forth from store to phone shopping.
But with unemployment low and the economy in solid shape, stores are hoping customers are in a mood to shop. About 69 percent of Americans, or 164 million people, intend to shop at some point during the five-day period from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday, according to a survey released by the National Retail Federation trade group. It expects Black Friday to remain the busiest day with about 115 million people planning to shop then.
“People expect promotions all week,” said Rod Sides, vice chairman of Deloitte LLP. As holiday shopping gets underway in earnest, he said, “people will come with a purpose and a plan. The Black Friday deals will go fast.”
Overall, the NRF expects sales in November and December to at least match the 3.6 percent growth of a year ago, to a range of $678.75 billion to $682 billion. It estimates that online spending and other non-store sales will rise 11 percent to 15 percent. Sides will be watching is how malls fare for the opening of the season, as shoppers increasingly go online or to discounters. “We don’t think the malls will be nearly as busy,” he said.