US shoppers spend $41bn in Thanksgiving weekend

The amount of money dished out at the shops this weekend hit $41.2bn – a rise of 0.5% on 2008.

Even so, credit-crunched Americans spent around 8% less each than normal, an average of $343, in the days following last Thursday’s holiday.

The total was higher because more of them – 195 million – shopped either online or by going out to stores.

The figures come from the largest retail trade organization in the world, the National Retailers Association, a body that illustrates why we call the United States a consumer society.

Its members employ 24 million people – around one in five US workers.

Shoppers at dawn

The National Retail Federation reported that a third of those who made a trip to the shops were there before 5am.

Those who stayed at home also did their bit for the consumer sector that makes up 70% of the US economy.

The Analytics firm Comscore said on Sunday that US online spending on Black Friday hit a record $595m, a rise of 11% compared with a year earlier.

Shares in the giant online retailer Amazon hit an all time high in Monday trading.

Discounting is always a big part of the holiday season, but analysts said retailers had done a good job of keeping stock levels in line, so they had not been forced into desperate price cuts like in 2008. That should help margins improve, at least compared with a year ago, they suggested.