151 million people shopped over Black Friday weekend

It was a similar in the U.S., although a number of brawls were reported at malls in Kentucky and Texas, where one shopper at a branch of Walmart took a swing at a police officer.

It beat the figure set a year ago when more than 5.5 million items were sold at a rate of about 64 per second.

People on average bought more and paid less for it, said Craig Johnson, principal at retail consultancy Consumer Growth Partners.

Many businesses believe that opening on Thanksgiving will boost overall holiday sales by getting shoppers in ahead of the official start to Black Friday. This represents the first time this has ever happened on Black Friday. Therefore, it is hard to say based on the NRF survey whether or not Black Friday sales were more or less enticing to shoppers than they were past year.

Of those who shopped in a store over the long weekend, 73 percent said they went on Black Friday.

By changing its survey methodology, the NRF threw a curve ball for analysts and media that closely watch its spending numbers for the Thanksgiving weekend. But 34 percent said they shopped on Thanksgiving Day and 46 percent said they shopped on Saturday. It stated that it would be updating its reports to include in-store sales as well. The data, compiled by Adobe Systems Inc., tracked the purchases across 4,500 online stores in the United States.

Separate research released on Sunday by analytics firm comScore showed that spending through desktop computers rose 9 percent to $1.1 billion on Thanksgiving Day and increased 10 percent on Black Friday to $1.66 billion. “It’s still a decent execution for the weekend, given the development that is being seen online too”, ShopperTrak originator Bill Martin said.

The holiday season is crucial to retailers, which can make up to 40% of their annual sales during that time.

The NRF said that its survey of 4,281 consumers showed that shoppers on average spent or planned to spend about $300 over the weekend, which runs from Thursday, Nov. 26 through Sunday, Nov. 29.

According to ShopperTrak, sales were down by a tenth to $10.4bn, while sales on Thanksgiving also fell by 10% to $1.8bn.