Shoppers spend less in this Thanksgiving weekend for the first time since 2008 amid weak recovery and early promotions from retailors, a survey released on Sunday.

The total spending of the four-day Thanksgiving weekend as from Thursday is estimated to reach 57.4 billion U.S. dollars, as shoppers on average spent about 16 dollars less than last year, said the survey of the National Retail Federation (NRF).

The figure is slightly lower than the 59.1 billion dollars in 2012, while the last time that recorded a decline in this period was in 2008 after the financial crisis broke out, according to the data of NRF.

President and CEO Matthew Shay said such decline was just "a snapshot for four days." The federation still kept its former expectation that the total year-end holiday season sales would increase by 3.9 percent year on year.

"There are a lot of shoppings that was done prior to this holiday weekend as retailors was out promoting opportunities because of the shortened holiday buying season," Shay said.

This year's Thanksgiving came as late as in 2002, which curtailed the year-end holiday season --from Thanksgiving to the New Year's day -- by 6 days compared with last year. To make up for losses, quite a lot of retailors started their Thanksgiving promotions a week ahead of Thanksgiving.

But Shay admitted that such decline was "in confluence with the relative modest economic recovery" for the United States.