With Black Friday having come and gone, many retailers may have found that overall customer spending was down slightly in 2013 from 2012. According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), customers spent an average of $407.02 during the Black Friday weekend this year, while they purchased $423.55 in the same period last year. 

Despite this shift, Matthew Shay, NRF president and CEO, stated that overall holiday spending will still increase by 3.9 percent year-over-year, Multichannel Merchant reported. Shay emphasized that the shorter sales period between Thanksgiving and the end of December has affected purchases, and that many customers have been shopping earlier in response. 

"Retailers are going to be very aggressive with promotions. The ones who are most aggressive are going to grab those holiday dollars," said Pam Goodfellow, consumer insights director at Prosper, according to Multichannel Merchant. 

Notably, 2009 was the last year without overall growth in retail sales. As such, merchants should prepare for an uptick in consumer traffic, both online and off. Those with powerful retail software in place will be able to move the high volume of holiday shoppers through the point of sale quickly, as well as reach the growing segment of ecommerce and mcommerce customers who are opting for online purchases rather than visiting brick-and-mortar locations. 

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Monday, December 2nd, 2013 at 12:26 pm .