NRF: Holiday weekend drew record shoppers; online and in-store up over last year
Consumers didn’t let financial and economic concerns stop them from shopping during the five-day holiday weekend.
A record 202.9 million consumers shopped from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday, according to the annual consumer survey released by the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics. The figure is up from 197 million shoppers last year and surpasses the previous record of 200.4 million set in 2023. It was the largest turnout since the NRF started tracking the five-day period in 2017, and surpassed the group forecast of 186.9 million shoppers over the holiday weekend
Consumers turned out both in-store and online throughout the five days. A total of 129.5 million consumers shopped in-store, up 3% from 126 million in 2024. Online saw 134.9 million shoppers, up 9% from 124.3 million last year.
The top gifts purchased during this period were clothing and accessories (51%), followed by toys (32%). Books and other media (28%) saw an increase from 22% last year and surpassed gift cards (26%) as the third most popular gift purchased during the weekend.
Black Friday remains the top shopping day for both in-store and online, attracting 80.3 million in-store shoppers and 85.7 million online. This was slightly below last year’s totals of 81.7 million and 87.3 million, respectively
Saturday drew 62.7 million in-store consumers, up slightly from 61.1 million in 2024, and 63 million online compared with 53.9 million last year. Notably, the Sunday after Thanksgiving drew a record 32.6 million in-store shoppers, a 27% increase over the 25.6 million who shopped in 2024. And 38.7 million shopped online on Sunday, compared with 32.8 million last year.
Other highlights from the survey are below.
- Cyber Monday continues to be the second most popular day for online shopping, attracting 75.9 million online shoppers compared with 64.4 million in 2024.
- Mobile remains the most popular way for online shoppers to browse and buy on Cyber Monday for the second year in a row, with 46.9 million consumers shopping online via their mobile device, up from 40.4 million last year.
- The top shopping destinations during Thanksgiving weekend were supermarkets (47%) and online (45%). Other top destinations included department stores (40%), clothing stores (37%) and discount stores (30%).
- Nearly all (96%) of those shopping over the weekend made a holiday-related purchase, spending $337.86 on average on items like gifts, holiday apparel, decorations and other seasonal purchases. This is up from $315.56 last year and is the highest figure since 2019’s record of $361.90. Approximately 67% ($225.74) was spent on gifts this past weekend.
“Consumers continue to take advantage of the extended holiday shopping weekend with online deals on Cyber Monday,” said Prosper executive VP of strategy Phil Rist. “While mobile devices now lead as the most popular way to shop online for Cyber Monday, laptops also remain popular.”
As of the Thanksgiving weekend, 84% of consumers had already begun their holiday shopping. However, similar to last year, shoppers still have a little over half (53%) of their holiday shopping remaining.
NRF defines the holiday season as Nov. 1 through Dec. 31. It has forecast that holiday spending will surpass $1 trillion for the first time with growth between 3.7% and 4.2% over 2024.
The survey of 3,099 adult consumers was conducted Nov. 26 – Nov. 30 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.8 percentage points.
