Black Friday Home Decor Retail Spending Up Over 2006

November 25, 2007  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in Furniture Retailing on November 2007 Black Friday weekend, the days after Thanksgiving and the traditional opening of the Christmas Holiday spending season, held some good news for furniture retailers, according to numbers released by the National Retail Federation.

According to NRF’s survey with BIGresearch, 19.6 percent of shoppers purchased “home decor or home-related furnishings,” compared to 17.4 percent last year. That’s still down from the 21.1 percent figure in 2005.

Overall traffic was up 4.8 percent compared to Black Friday 2006, but sales were down 3.5 percent. NRF still projects holiday sales to increase 4 percent in 2007 to $474.5 billion.

Interestingly, men outspent women this past weekend, with men averaging purchases of $393.63 compared to $303.95 for women. Clothing or clothing accessories (46.8 percent of shoppers), were the most popular categories, followed by books, CDs, DVDs, videos or video games (41.7 percent); consumer electronics (35.7 percent); toys (28.2 percent); and gift cards (21 percent).

Today’s shopping activity on the Internet, the so-called “CyberMonday,” should be of interest. Research house comScore predicts today’s online spending will exceed $700 million, which would make give it the most one-day sales in e-commerce history.