(Reuters) - Online sales in the U.S. were up about 4% for the first half of the Thanksgiving holiday, compared to a 2% rise last year, Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) data showed on Thursday, a fresh sign that shoppers are lapping up steep discounts from retailers.
U.S. retailers have been rolling out bolder discounts early and bulking up their holiday deals to capture the attention of more frugal shoppers this year.
Earlier this week, Best Buy (NYSE:BBY) CEO Corie Barry said the electronics retailer "expected lower demand between sales events, but the impact was steeper than expected," echoing Target (NYSE:TGT) executives who reported a stronger-than-anticipated response to promotions this year.
While department stores such as Kohl's (NYSE:KSS) and Macy's (NYSE:M) are being cautious with their annual forecasts due to a slowdown in sales, Abercrombie & Fitch and Gap have raised their forecasts because of strong demand for trendy apparel. Retail giants Walmart (NYSE:WMT) and Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) also are expected to benefit from what could be a mixed holiday shopping season.
The peak Thanksgiving window for online shopping in the U.S. will be between 7 p.m. and midnight EST, when 35% of sales are expected to occur, according to Salesforce, a cloud-based software company. That figure is based on traffic patterns of thousands of online retailers.
This year's holiday shopping season, which runs from Thanksgiving to Christmas, is expected to grow at its slowest pace in six years, according to separate reports from the National Retail (NYSE:NNN) Federation and Deloitte.
Salesforce reported online sales of $7.5 billion on Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. in 2023, a rise of 1% from the previous year.
On Nov. 20, the company projected that Cyber Week, which runs from the Tuesday before Thanksgiving to the Monday after the holiday, would generate $311 billion in global sales.
Thanksgiving is expected to be the best day to shop for toys, appliances, furniture and sporting goods, according to data from Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE) Analytics.