Retailers expect big boost in holiday sales from Black Friday shoppers

They’ve started offering mega-discounts in stores and online earlier instead of waiting until Black Friday.

Called Black Friday, but now actually beginning up to a week before Thanksgiving, when brick-and-mortar and online retailers begin boasting seasonal sales, the day after the nation’s day of thanks has always been seen as the official start to the holiday gift shopping season.

But with many holiday shoppers getting a head start on their haul with stores opening Thanksgiving evening, some Friday crowds appear to have thinned.

Kevin Marrocuin of Sacramento was headed to his auto with electronic gear he had just bought at the Best Buy in Vacaville and planned to go back into the store for more purchases.

Black Friday used to kick off the holiday shopping season, but now that day has taken a backseat to Thanksgiving Day. That compares with 133.7 million past year, but the group said those figures are not comparable because of its change in methodology. By contrast, the National Retail Federation expects total holiday retail sales, including in-store and online, to grow 3.7 percent. “It’s been really nice the best Black Friday I’ve had seriously in years”, said Lloyd.

At Target, mother Cindy Williams and her adult daughters Keila Smithpeters and Stacy Haas pushed a cartload of baby and home items from the store. We opened two hours earlier this year.

Why venture out into the retail madness? “I’m seeing what they have at Best Buy and maybe go and compare it to other places”.

Even before Thanksgiving Thursday shoppers could find great deals.

“It was insane, not as insane as I expected, but there were still a lot of folks there up to the wee hours”, she said.

Some shoppers already are jaded about Black Friday deals.

The unseasonably warm weather – temperatures rose into the 60s in Pittsburgh on Friday – helped drive customers to stores, said Chris Christopher, an economist at consulting firm IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Mass. Still, Black Friday is a more casual shopping experience than in previous years. Justin and Eric Beyer are now both in their 20s and have embraced their mother’s tradition – it’s become part of the family Thanksgiving celebration.

While Black Friday may be losing some appeal in the United States, British shoppers have taken to the concept enthusiastically, with reports of large crowds at big stores and malls in the UK. But the Thanksgiving Day crowd, when the store opened at 6 a.m., was bigger than the Black Friday turnout. Online, it achieved its biggest day ever for digital sales.

Separate data underscored the ongoing shift of shopping to online retailers. Online sales Thursday increased 26% over past year, driven heavily by mobile devices, which accounted for 40% of online sales, according to IBM Watson Trend, which tracks spending by monitoring millions of transactions from retail websites.