The National Retail Federation's 2008 Black Friday Weekend survey released Sunday afternoon projected that more than 172 million  shoppers will have visitedstores and websites from Thursday through Sunday, up from 147 million shoppers last year.

Shoppers spent an average of $372.57 during the four-day weekend, up 7.2% over last year’s $347.55. Total spending reached an estimated 41.0 billion.
“Pent-up demand on electronics and clothing, plus unparalleled bargains on this season’s hottest items helped drive shopping all weekend,” said NRF President and CEO Tracy Mullin.
Friday was clearly the busiest day of the weekend with 73.6 million people hitting stores and websites for sales. Though traffic did subside after Friday, retailers were also buoyed by two-day sales as $56.9 million people shopped on Saturday, up from 48.3 million last year, while
another 26.2 million people planned to shop on Sunday. The survey found that 23.3% of shoppers were at stores by 5 a.m. while more than half (57.6%) were at stores by 9 a.m. indicating that bargains will drive consumers to change their shopping habits. Deep discounting by department stores also apparently worked as 43% of respondents said they visited one, up from 38.7% in 2007.
Nearly 55% of shoppers visited discount stores, while about one-third visited specialty stores. An estimated 11.4% of shoppers (18+) purchased sporting goods or leisure items, up 300 basis points from the 8.4% level last year. This year’s number included 14.4% of men, 8.6% of women, 15.2% of consumers aged 18 to 34 and 14.1% with incomes of more than $50,000. Shoppers in the West showed the highest propensity to buy sporting goods and leisure items at 12.6%, compared to 16.8% in the Northeast, 10.3% in the Midwest and 12.3% in the South.
Gift card purchasing as a percent of the total dropped fell 230 basis points to 18.7% of shoppers purchasing a gift card over the weekend, down from 21.0% last year. NRF continues to project that holiday sales will rise 2.2 % this year to $470.4 billion.