Black Friday Kick-Off to Holiday Shopping Season Hints at Shift Online

If you plan to shop online, check out your favorite websites ahead of time to see if they are promoting their best Black Friday deals.

Shop Online with Your Smartphone – Ensure that you are making the most of your time whenever you are waiting in a line to purchase an item. About 137 million people are considering doing their holiday shopping online or in the malls during Thanksgiving weekend, according to the National Retail Federation. They reopened Friday morning at 8 a.m. “We just stood in line for about five minutes and that was the most we’ve had to stand in line all night, so it hasn’t been bad”, Erica Nelson said. “I’m pretty much here every Saturday, so this is like a normal Saturday, truthfully”, she said.

A Black Friday sign stands in a mall one week before Black Friday. They had been on a shopping spree since 11 p.m. Thursday, hitting Wal-Mart, Target and other chains.

Shopper Lianne Lu said she was at the store at about 3:30 a.m. and has been shopping for a while.

“I buy a lot of stuff online, but when it comes to technology, I want to see and feel what I’m buying”, the 25-year-old Jackson Township resident said. “If it were up to me, I would be in my pajamas and on my computer at home”. The mall is encouraging shoppers to download the Westfarms app to check out sales and map a Black Friday route before they head out the door.

Shoppers across the USA are on the hunt for deals after stores opened for what is still one of the busiest days of the year, even as the start of the Christmas season edges earlier.

Through the Thanksgiving weekend, sales in the US are projected to total over $55 billion, surpassing the $53-billion level reached during the same period a year ago. Target is starting Cyber Monday a day early, on Sunday, as well as offering a 15%-off deal in stores as well as online for the first time.

While many stores opened on Thanksgiving this year, others held off on an early start.

Faith Ruggieri, standing in the damp and chilly night air outside a Walmart WMT.N in Providence, Rhode Island on Black Friday, represented a hopeful sign for traditional retailers squeezed by online rivals such as Amazon.com Inc AMZN.N .

Still, retailers were prepped and ready for crowds Friday.

The retail chain also saw an increase in guests shopping via mobile, contributing to more than 60 per cent of the store’s online sales.

“You’re taking care of customers I guess, but I’m away from my family”.

Black Friday, as the day after Thanksgiving is called, has traditionally started the holiday shopping season in the United States and was the day when retailers turned a profit, thus going from “being in the red” to “in the black”. NRF defines holiday sales as those occurring in the months of November and December. That excludes auto sales, gas and restaurant receipts. That excludes vehicle sales, gas and restaurant receipts but includes online spending and other non-store sales like catalog spending.

A handful of stores at the East Hills Shopping Center opened Thursday evening, but the vast amount of businesses inside of the mall welcomed in shoppers at 6 a.m. Friday.