The story narrating the retail sector’s transformation is now old. What is coming up is the most happening holiday season, the key yearly event for retailers. This money-making period brings with it a lot of enthusiasm as Christmas and Thanksgiving provide ample opportunities for retailers to make up for lost profits during the year.

After the overwhelming sales numbers for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, that raked in as much as $335.47 average spending from individuals, the optimism for the Christmas sales has certainly doubled up.

The spending data from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday indicates that the U.S. retail industry is ready to shed all worries and embrace a profitable holiday season this year. Data from the nation’s largest retail trade group, National Retail Federation (“NRF”) revealed that more than 174 million Americans shopped in stores and online during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, leaving behind its estimate to engage 164 million shoppers.

A sentiment that is ruling the retail sector this holiday season is that shoppers are willing to spend more online this holiday season. However, the charisma of in-store shopping remains key to the overall shopping experience. According to a survey conducted by Deloitte, about 83% of the respondents are likely to use their smartphones, laptops, desktops and social media to shop this holiday season.

This trend was palpable during the recent Cyber Monday sales, when more than 81 million shoppers made purchases online. This popular online shopping day raked in online sales of a record $6.59 million, as per Adobe Analytics. Reflecting $1 billion (or 16.8%) growth from last year, this day marked the largest online shopping day in U.S. history.

However, the two top days for in-store shopping this year were Black Friday and Small Business Saturday, when 77 million and 55 million shoppers, respectively, stepped out of their homes to take advantage of the big deals.

Holiday Projections

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