• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, November 20, 2023

Walmart toy shopper

The National Retail Federation predicts 74% of holiday shoppers plan to spring into action next weekend, the highest estimate since NRF began tracking this data in 2017. In the 2019 survey, 69% said they intended to shop the Big Weekend.

Roughly 16 million more people will be out there spending this year than last.

Deloitte predicts that consumers will spend an average of $567 during the Black Friday to Cyber Monday events, up 13% from last year. It finds that participation is even with last year, with roughly 80% planning to make at least one purchase.

Both the NRF and Deloitte poll consumers about shopping plans for Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday, all through Cyber Monday. Although a growing number of people start shopping before, the weekend is considered the unofficial kickoff of the holiday season. It gives retailers a quick sense of how well they’ve done anticipating the season’s most in-demand items.

People still love Black Friday best, with 72%, or an estimated 130.7 million, planning to shop that day, per the NRF. That’s up from 69% last year. Cyber Monday comes in second, with 39% saying they’ll shop that day. Thanksgiving Day itself is less appealing, with just 32.5 million people likely to shop, and many retailers deciding to remain closed in consideration of their employees.

The speculation that economic worries and shopping events like Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days in October would spur earlier shopping this year seems to be on the money, with 40% of respondents saying they took advantage of retailers’ October sales to shop for gifts, décor and other seasonal items. Of those shoppers, 48% say they’ve already purchased some presents. And 59% have already begun browsing.

But on average, shoppers have only completed 25% of their planned purchases, the NRF says, so there is plenty of spending ahead.

And much of that spending, Deloitte says, will be for themselves. Its survey finds that millennials are expected to drive a significant share of spending over the weekend, at 43%. And 68% of those young shoppers say intend to pick up a present for themselves.

Earlier this month, NRF predicted that total holiday spending would reach record levels, growing between 3% and 4% to $957.3 billion to $966.6 billion. Deloitte forecasts gains of between 3.5% and 4.6%.