The poll by the National Retail Federation on shopping plans for the three days after the Thanksgiving Day holiday -- Black Friday, Saturday and Sunday -- found 57 million consumers definitely planning to hit the stores.

Another 77 million said that before heading out, they would make sure retailers were offering big enough discounts.

That is up from last year's survey in advance of Black Friday, when 49 million consumers said they planned to shop and an additional 79 million said they might if promotions were tempting. Holiday sales in 2008 turned out to be the worst in nearly four decades in the midst of a global financial markets crisis.

Some 16 percent of respondents said they'd begin their holiday shopping the day after U.S. Thanksgiving this year, up from 10 percent in 2007 and 2008 and an earlier high of 13 percent in 2006, according to a holiday spending survey from the International Council of Shopping Centers and Goldman Sachs.

The ICSC has forecast holiday sales to rise about 1 percent to 2 percent this year in one of the more bullish predictions.

"ICSC Research thinks the holiday spending performance will be better than these pre-season consumer expectations, which is often the case following business cycle turning points in the economy," said Michael Niemira, ICSC's director of research and chief economist, in a statement.