What are your plans for Thanksgiving? Planning on watching some football after wolfing down your turkey and pumpkin pie?
Or are you going to get a jump on your holiday shopping?
If you’re like a growing number of people, you’re aiming for the latter.
The National Retail Federal reported in its latest survey that an estimated 137.4 million U.S. consumers are either planing to shop or are considering hitting the stores during Thanksgiving weekend.
That comes out to 59 percent of Americans who are considering adding a dash of retail to theri Thanksgiving retail plans.
The numbers from the survey — conducted by the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics — cover Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Sunday. The numbers also include both in-store and online shopping.
And if you think more people are planning their Thanksgiving celebration around shopping, you’re right. The retail federation said that last year 58.7 percent, or 135.8 million Americans, planned to shop some time during the holiday weekend.
“Black Friday remains one of the busiest shopping days of the year, with Americans planning to take advantage of aggressive in-store and digital promotions over the entire holiday weekend,” said Matthew Shay, president and chief executive officer of the retail foundation, in a written statement.
According to the survey, 21 percent of shoppers plan to hit the stores on Thanksgiving Day. Black Friday, of course, is predicted to be the busiest shopping day of the weekend, with 74 percent of weekend shoppers hitting the stores that day. An additional 47 percent say they will shop on Saturday.
Not surprisingly, younger people say they are more likely to shop. The survey found that 77 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds planned to shop over the Thanksgiving weekend, while 76 percent of 25- to 34-year-olds planned to do the same thing.
“Millennials continue to drive the trend of hitting the stores – both on their feet and online – as soon as the turkey is finished,” said Prosper principal analyst Pam Goodfellow in a written statement.
