Nearly half of Americans plan to go shopping on Thanksgiving evening this year

With Thanksgiving a mere two weeks away, Americans across the country are gearing up for what comes right after - the prime holiday shopping season.

This year has seen the closure and downsizing of numerous brick-and-mortar retailers. But intriguingly, Americans appear to be more likely this year than in the past to shop on Thanksgiving evening and Black Friday - both important days for physical retailers. By contrast, as we can see in this chart from Statista, which is based on data from Nielsen, the proportion of US consumers who expect to shop on Cyber Monday - the big day for e-commerce companies - is more or less holding steady.

Of course there can be a difference between what consumers say and what they actually do. Their stated plans aside, online shopping has been gaining steam. Last year, for example, consumers shattered records by spending a whopping $3.45 billion on Cyber Monday.

Mike Nudelman/Business Insider