NEW YORK, Nov. 29 (Xinhua) -- After weeks of pushing early deals, U.S. retailers tried to seduce customers with promises of bigger discounts on Black Friday, the sales event that still reigns as the unofficial kickoff of the holiday shopping season, reported The Associated Press (AP) on Friday.
"Department stores, shopping malls and merchants, big and small, see the day after Thanksgiving as a way to energize shoppers and to get them into physical stores at a time when many gift-seekers do the bulk of their browsing and buying online," noted the report.
Enough traditionalists are still around that Black Friday remains the biggest day of the year for retail foot traffic in the country, according to retail technology company Sensormatic Solutions.
"Black Friday is still an incredibly important day for retailers," Grant Gustafson, head of retail consulting and analytics at Sensormatic, was quoted as saying. "It's important for them to be able to get shoppers into their store to show them that experience of what it's like to browse and touch and feel items. It also can be a bellwether for retailers on what to expect for the rest of the holiday season."
In the United States, analysts envision a solid holiday shopping season, though perhaps not as robust as last year's, with many shoppers under financial pressure and cautious with their discretionary spending despite the easing of inflation, added the report.
The National Retail Federation predicted that shoppers would increase their spending in November and December by between 2.5 percent and 3.5 percent over the same period a year ago. During the 2023 holiday shopping season, spending increased 3.9 percent over 2022.
