U.S. shoppers spent more time and money at bricks-and-mortar stores over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend than the same period last year, though foot traffic remained below pre-pandemic levels, the Wall Street Journal reported. The rebound marks a reversal from 2020 when the pandemic accelerated a yearslong shift of holiday spending occurring online at the expense of in-store shopping. It also shows retailers were able to secure spending on the key Black Friday selling day, analysts say, even though discounts weren’t as prevalent this year and they spent weeks nudging customers to shop earlier in the season. RetailNext, a firm that tracks shopper counts in thousands of stores with cameras and sensors, said store traffic rose 61% this Black Friday compared with last year but was down 27% from 2019. Sensormatic Solutions, another firm that tracks store traffic, said Black Friday traffic rose 48% from last year, but was 28% lower than in 2019. The Thanksgiving holiday weekend was also the first time in years that online retail sales didn’t increase from the prior year, according to some industry estimates. Online Black Friday sales fell to $8.9 billion from $9 billion last year, according to Adobe Inc., while Thanksgiving Day online sales were roughly flat at $5.1 billion, the first time sales didn’t increase since Adobe started tracking the figures in 2012.
