Shopping season starts with a bang

If you ventured into the stores this past weekend, you may have had the impression that economic activity was up.

It was. In fact, according to the National Retail Federation, it reached historic highs.

In a survey conducted Thursday through Saturday, a record 226 million shoppers visited stores or websites over the four-day weekend, up 14 million from last year.

And shoppers dug a little deeper into their wallets when making purchases. The NRF says that the average shopper spent $398.62 this past weekend, up sharply from the average expenditure of $365.34 by holiday shoppers last year.

The federation estimates that a whopping $52 billion was spent over the Black Friday weekend, and that record numbers of shoppers hits the stores