American consumers hit both retail stores and websites in droves over the Thanksgiving weekend. While definite numbers are not yet known, Black Friday internet sales saw a significant bump from last year's amounts. The holiday shopping season has only just begun, so merchants are still optimistic about strong sales over the coming weeks.

Internet Retailer reports that research from IBM revealed that many shoppers opted out of going to brick-and-mortar stores on Black Friday, instead deciding to purchase items and gifts online. Ecommerce retail sales on this day were up 20.7 percent from last year's Black Friday. However, consumers spent less on products and also bought fewer items, IBM found. One of the reasons for this slight drop could be due to businesses lowering the minimum amounts for customers to be eligible for free shipping.

While these numbers were not as high as were hoped for, Black Friday is just the official start of the holiday shopping season, so the next few weeks could see strong boosts in overall retail sales. The National Retail Federation estimates that holiday purchases will increase by 4.1 percent this year from 2011's amounts, reaching a total of $568.1 billion both in stores and online.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Tuesday, November 27th, 2012 at 3:50 am .