MILWAUKEE — The big holiday shopping days are here and breaking records. Retailers are seeing a lot of green for both Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
"I do Black Friday every year. Normally, I am buying appliances and big boxed items,” said Nichole Smith, a shopper from Milwaukee.
She spent the weekend shopping at the Pleasant Prairie outlet mall scoring deals on jewelry, apparel, and her new purse. She was back at it for Cyber Monday.
"Oh, I have already done that. I did that this morning,” said Smith who already bought some items.
She is not alone. Black Friday saw a record-breaking $9 billion in sales and experts are expecting $11 billion for Cyber Monday, according to Adobe Analytics, which would be another record.
"I think I'm very excited about kind of how it's starting off and where we're going to be going from here,” said John Felton, senior vice president of Amazon Worldwide Operations.
"We're seeing so much activity right now, and this is sort of the normal Black Friday, Cyber Monday activity with a little bit of extra action on top of it because retailers are sitting on a lot of excess merchandise because of overstocks due to the pandemic,” said Trae Bodge, a smart shopping expert at TrueTrae.com.
Shopping and consumer expert Trae Bodge says even though the spending numbers are big, there is not expected to be a huge jump in sales like there was in 2020 during the pandemic when people went big for the holidays.
“I think ultimately, this is not going to be a massive spending holiday. I know it seems like it right now because there's so much going on. But, according to Deloitte, for example, they're predicting a four to six hike over last year, but the year before was 15 percent year over year. So this is going to be much more modest than it kind of feels right now,” said Bodge.
But what shoppers are feeling is the discounts and it has people like Smith buying.
"It is kind of like whatever you see, you see a deal, get it,” said Smith.
For Cyber Monday, there are some items you should look for and some to wait on. It is a great day to buy small appliances, beauty items, and fall apparel. The items to wait on include toys, holiday gift sets, and winter apparel. Those are more likely to see discounts of 50 percent or higher in December.
