Retail, Online & Small Business Holiday Sales Strong
A record 247 million shoppers visited stores and
websites over Black Friday weekend, up from 226 million last year, according to
the National Retail Federation. The average shopper spent $423 this weekend, up
from $398 last year, helping total spending reach an estimated $59.1 billion.
Small businesses across the country got their
holiday season off to a strong start as millions of U.S. consumers
"shopped small" on Small Business Saturday and made a big impact on
local communities.
Holiday shoppers turned Cyber Monday into the
biggest spending day ever with online sales growing 30.3 percent over the same
period last year, according to cloud-based analytics findings by IBM (NYSE:
IBM).
