Retailers were brought cheer with a strong kickoff to the holiday season with bigger crowds that spent more dollars than ever before.
The National Retail Federation released a survey on Nov. 27 announcing the total spending reached $52.4 billion, which was an increase of 16 percent from last year's $45 billion.
Heavy promotions, steep discounts and earlier-than-ever openings at stores such as Walmart, Toys"R"Us, and Target brought shoppers to the stores and on the web for the four-day weekend. About one-quarter of Black Friday shoppers were at stores by midnight, up from 9.5 percent in 2010.
On Black Friday alone, sales increased 6.6 percent, and there was a 5.1 percent rise in foot-traffic from the same day in the previous year estimating about $11.4 billion in sales according to Shopper Trak – the world's largest provider of retail and mall foot traffic counting services.
The National Retail Federation reported there was about 227 million shoppers in stores and on the web across the country during the weekend, the volume of online shoppers was up 7 percent from 212 million last year.
Shopping online played a larger role this year before the launch of Cyber Monday – describing the discounts that retailers offer in order to increase their online sales taking place the Monday following the weekend of Black Friday. According to IBM's Coremetrics, which tracks real-time from 500 retailers in the apparel, department store, health and beauty and home good categories, sales were up 39.3 percent on Thanksgiving Day and 24.3 percent on Black Friday.
Black Friday was not full of holiday cheer for everyone, as trouble arose at many Walmart's across the country. Late Thanksgiving night, in Los Angeles, 20 customers, including children, were pepper-sprayed by a customer who was shopping for an Xbox.
Another incident in California occurred at the San Leandro Walmart, where after resisting two armed men trying to steal items, a man was shot at in the early morning hours. Incidents at other Wal-Mart locations
included:
•An armed robbery in a parking lot in South Carolina.
•Police used a stun gun on Brian Shellnut in Connecticut, who now faces assault and other charges after he allegedly hit another shopper in a fight Thanksgiving night while waiting to buy video games.
•In a consumer rush to the electronic department, a teen suffered minor injuries after being knocked over and stepped on repeatedly in Mississippi.
With a decent predicted holiday season, and record-setting numbers of Black Friday, seasonal employment could cut the country's unemployment rate, which is at 9 percent.
Unfortunately, many stores are playing it safe when it comes to hiring for the holiday season. Only two-thirds of retailers plan to hire at the same rate of the previous year while 25 percent plan to hire less.
Many stores who are trying to make up 20 percent of annual earnings rely upon the sales between Thanksgiving and Christmas. This season sales began to increase by 3.6 percent starting the week of Nov. 12, and 3.8 percent during the week of the Nov. 19.
Extended shopping hours and pre-promotions explain some of these increases.
Holiday sales on the rise may not last long and with the high unemployment rate and other winter purchases such as heating oil and plowing, it may cut a toll in this year's record-setting shopping season.
is a member of the 
Be the first to comment on this article!