NRF survey: 33% of consumers expected to shop Black Friday, will monitor social media for deals

Washington, D.C. -- A survey released Thursday by the National Retail Federation said that the number of people “definitely” shopping stores and websites on Black Friday as jumped to 33%, from 27% in 2010.



According to a preliminary Black Friday shopping survey, conducted for NRF by BIGresearch, up to 152 million people plan to shop Black Friday weekend (Friday, Saturday and Sunday), higher than the 138 million people who planned to do so last year. According to the survey, 74 million people say they will definitely hit the stores and another 77 million are waiting to see if the bargains are worth braving the cold and the crowds.



“Though many retailers are already touting select Black Friday ads, there’s no doubt we’ll all be blown away by what retailers still have in their bag of tricks for shoppers,” said NRF president and CEO Matthew Shay. “We fully expect to see excited shoppers as early as midnight at stores around the country, as many holiday shoppers would rather stay up all night to take advantage of retailers’ Black Friday deals rather than set their alarm to wake up the next morning.”



For the first time, NRF asked shoppers how they plan to keep track of retailers’ holiday sales and promotions announcements. Half (50.5%) will keep up with advertising circulars throughout the holiday season and nearly one-third (31.7%) said they will tune in to watch retailers’ holiday commercials. Additionally, 23.1% will seek out coupon websites like RetailMeNot.com and FatWallet.com, and 32.3% will specifically keep track of the email coupons they receive from retailers.



The survey found 17.3% will monitor retailers’ Facebook pages and 11.3% will check out group buying sites like Groupon and LivingSocial. Of those who own tablet devices and who plan to shop for or research holiday items this year, one in five (21.3%) will seek out group buying sites and 31.2% will check out retailers’ Facebook pages.