This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Business & Tech

Shoppers Spent More This Black Friday

Surveys are reporting the biggest sales increase for Black Friday since 2007.

Both Town and County boutiques and Manchester big box stores saw record—and well behaved—.

“It was really busy the whole day,” said a clerk at in Town and Country Crossing. Though Codi didn’t advertise its sale, the store sent out special Black Friday alerts to customers who joined its email list.

Managers at larger stores said they were pleased with the Black Friday turnout.

Interested in local real estate?Subscribe to Patch's new newsletter to be the first to know about open houses, new listings and more.

“It went really smoothly, we had a crowd to the end of the building,” said a manager at . “We had Door Buster items left over from the night, but they were gone by Saturday morning.”

prepared diligently for its first midnight opening.

Interested in local real estate?Subscribe to Patch's new newsletter to be the first to know about open houses, new listings and more.

“We got a lot of complements on how well organized it was,” said a Kohl’s manager. “We reviewed how to handle line monitoring and went over where everyone needed to be stationed throughout the store.”

According to national surveys, holiday shoppers pulled out their wallets this past weekend and spent $11.4 billion on Black Friday. The survey by ShopperTrak indicated that nationally Black Friday sales increased 6.6 percent when compared to previous Black Fridays and this year saw the largest gain since 2007. Last year revenue only increased by .3 percent.

Black Friday accounts for an average of 20 percent of retailers year long sales, according to ShopperTrak.

Another survey conducted by BIGresearch for the National Retail Federation showed that shoppers spent an average of $398.62 each on Black Friday weekend, up by about $33 dollars compared to last year. The survey also showed that many Black Friday shoppers went online searching for deals and spent an average of $150 each. This does not include figures for “Cyber Monday” when retailers breakout even more online specials.

“Consumers are clearly demonstrating their desire to spend this holiday season, but are far from throwing caution to the wind when it comes to how much they will spend on gifts,” said Phil Rist, EVP, BIGresearch. “Retailers will have to stick to an aggressive holiday promotion schedule to keep consumers interested.”

On the Horizon:

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?

More from Town And Country-Manchester