Record-breaking holiday shopping weekend ahead

(CNN NEWSOURCE) — The holiday shopping season is ramping up as malls and stores gear up for large crowds between Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

The National Retail Federation predicts this could be the busiest holiday shopping season they’ve ever recorded since it started tracking in 2017.

That’s despite historic inflation and looming recession fears.

An estimated 166.3 million people are planning to shop from Thanksgiving day through Cyber Monday, according to the NRF. That’s almost 8 million more than last year.

“Today’s shopper is very savvy when it comes to shopping around and finding what works best for them,” said Katherine Cullen with NRF.

“We’re seeing people overcoming that because they want to do something special this season. We’re forecasting a really strong finish to the year. So, we will achieve over $2 billion dollars in sales this year. Record,” said California shopping complex Executive Director Debra Gunn Downing.

The NRF says some Americans will likely cut back on other things — they’re being more strategic when it comes to hunting for deals and comparing prices.

But they still want to get into the holiday spirit after missing out during the pandemic.

“They may be dipping into some savings. We know that uh some households were able to build up a fair amount of savings during the pandemic or through some of the stimulus programs that were in place,” said Cullen.

Meanwhile, small business owners like Allison Ash say this is a critical weekend for her store and says shoppers are buying early and still shopping local.

“Even if there’s a recession, people want to make it happy and they want to do whatever they can to make sure their family has a good time,” Ash said.

Overall, the NRF predicts holiday sales during this November and December to increase between 6% and 8% over 2021.