More than 200 million U.S. consumers shopped in stores and online over the five days from Thanksgiving to Monday, according to the National Retail Federation's annual Thanksgiving survey of shoppers, with 121.4 million of those shopping in physical stores.

“We had a big expectations based on what consumers had told us in the survey that we had done in advance of the weekend,” NRF CEO Matt Shay said during a conference call Tuesday. “We thought we'd have a big weekend, and we did.”

Last year, 196.7 million people shopped during the same period, with 122.7 million going to physical stores. The post-Thanksgiving period both in 2022 and this year drew more shoppers than before the pandemic. In 2019, some 189.6 million shoppers were active in stores and online.

This year, each shopper spent an average of $321.41 on holiday-related purchases over the five days, slightly down from last year, when the total was $325.44, the NRF reported. About two-thirds of consumer holiday spending was on gifts.

Black Friday remains the busiest day for both online and in-store shopping, the survey results show, with 76.2 million consumers shopping in stores on that day. Some 90.6 million people also shopped online on Black Friday, besting Cyber Monday, when 73.1 million people did so.

Shay attributed the strong showing to a number of factors, such as reasonably good weather and the fact that Thanksgiving was relatively early this year. But the biggest lure was the deals that retailers offered.

“Consumers reported that, on average, 55% of their Thanksgiving weekend purchases were specifically driven by sales and promotions, which is only slightly different from last year, when it was 52%,” Shay said.

That trend is expected to continue throughout the rest of the holiday shopping season, Shay said, with shoppers reporting that they still have about half of their shopping to do.

“It's fair to expect, based on what they've told us, that they're going to continue to look for promotions and bargains and opportunities that help them stretch the family budget,” Shay said.

The retail sectors that performed best over the five days were clothing and accessories — nearly half of shoppers bought clothing of some kind — along with toys, gift cards, books, video games and other media.

Personal care and beauty items also fared well, according to Prosper Insights & Analytics Executive Vice President Phil Rist, whose company conducted the survey for the NRF. The survey of nearly 3,500 adult U.S. consumers was conducted from Wednesday to Sunday.

Among physical stores, shoppers visited supermarkets (42% reported they had done so), department stores (40%), clothing and accessory stores (36%), and electronics stores (29%), Rist said during the conference call.

NRF defines the holiday season as Nov. 1 through Dec. 31, and the organization forecast that holiday spending will grow between 3% and 4% this year compared with 2022, totaling $957.3B to $966.6B. The organization didn't report total spending numbers for the five days around Thanksgiving.