US retailers are waiting to learn whether the strong start of the holiday shopping frenzy will happily take them all the way into the final stretch.
Americans may wind up shelling out more than $586 billion by the time Christmas Day comes around. This represents a 4% increase over the previous year and millions got an early start with stores opening this long weekend.
It appears that these record breaking register receipts assures that an extra-long Black Friday Local Saturday and Cyber Monday will be a Thanksgiving tradition as classic as turkey or watching football games.
Online shopping on Turkey Weekend is up so far to a robust 17.4% over last year and expected to rise with a prediction of online sales for the entire 32-day season will spike 12% over 2011 blowing away the growth anticipated for brick-and-mortar stores.Those stores are reporting brisk business, buoyed by increased confidence in the economic recovery and more jobs.