“We’re seeing a very positive start to the holiday season,” said Jill Renslow, chief business development and marketing officer at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, which plans to give gift cards and other giveaways to the first 250 customers who show up at 7 a.m. on Friday. “The last few Saturdays in November have been very strong.”

Mall traffic heading into Black Friday surpassed the numbers from pre-pandemic 2019, Renslow said.

A forecast from the National Retail Federation, the nation’s largest retail trade group, predicted a healthy increase in holiday sales. The group estimated that shoppers would collectively spend between $1.01 trillion and $1.02 trillion in November and December, or 3.7% to 4.2% more than last year.

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