NEW YORK (AP) — The holiday shopping season appears to be off to a respectable start. Shoppers came out in bigger numbers than last year on Friday and traffic was steady through the weekend.
Add in strong spending earlier in the month and robust sales online, and retailers are feeling encouraged. That’s particularly true because shoppers also scooped up more items for themselves.
The question remains how many dollars shoppers are prepared to spend before Christmas.
Retailers at shopping malls eked out a 0.3 percent increase in revenue to $10.69 billion on Black Friday, according to preliminary figures from ShopperTrak.
Online, spending rose more than 14 percent from Thanksgiving Day through Saturday, according to IBM’s Coremetrics.
