Cheerfully braving the crushing masses of bargain hunters during the busiest shopping period of the year, consumers put retailers nationwide back in the black, according to preliminary data released yesterday.
The National Retail Federation said that 145 million Americans, almost half the population, walked into a store or logged onto a retailer’s Web site, with electronics showing the biggest improvement in demand from last year.
All told, shoppers dropped an average of $302.81 in gift purchases.
Sales on the day after Thanksgiving, or “Black Friday” – when long-suffering retailers traditionally start to turn profitable – hit $8 billion.
That’s drop of a little under 1 percent over last year, but “is nothing to worry about given that online sales might increase 18 percent this year,” said Bill Martin of ShopperTrak, which monitors sales.
Online holiday sales are expected to hit nearly $20 billion on nontravel goods during the holiday season.
That would be up $15.8 billion over the same period last year, according to comScore Networks, which provides data related to online browsing and buying.
Cash might be king, but the American consumer continues to prefer the convenience of plastic.
Consumer use of both debit and credit cards was up 12 percent compared to last year, and the use of credit cards in department stores was up 8 percent, Visa said in statement.
Personal entertainment devices like the iPod, when factored into the sales of computers and accessories, added up to over 19 percent of retail sales in the Visa system.
Department-store giant Wal-Mart reported better-than-expected post-Thanksgiving sales, with computers and dolls among its best sellers.
JCPenney reported that shoppers spent heavily on apparel, accessories and home gift items in its stores.
“Friday was a record day for the company and clearly exceeded our expectations,” said Ken Hicks, president and chief merchandising officer for JCPenney.
roddy.boyd@nypost.com