Shoppers spend $27.8 bil on holiday sales

About 145 million shoppers braved the crowds, according to a National Retail Federation survey conducted by BIGresearch.

The average shopper spent $302. 81 over the weekend, accounting for a 21.9 percent increase from last year’s $22.8 billion in total shopping.

More than 60 million shoppers headed to the stores on Friday, an increase of 7.9 percent from last year. Another 52.8 million shopped on Saturday, up 13.3 percent from 2004, and Sunday shoppers totaled 22 million, about the same as last year’s figures.

The majority of consumers, 60.7 percent, shopped at discount stores, while 47 percent shopped at department stores and 41.2 percent went to specialty stores.

About 49.2 percent of shoppers purchased clothing or clothing accessories. Another 46.7 percent bought books, CDs, DVDs, videos and video games. Electronics purchases experienced the highest increase over last year with 36.7 percent of shoppers buying in that category, compared to 31.2 percent last year.

Online retailers saw solid results from the weekend, as nearly one in three consumers, or 27.4 percent, chose to do some shopping on the Internet.

As of Sunday, the average person had completed 35.6 percent of his or her holiday shopping, slightly less than a year ago when the average person had completed 36.8 percent.