Even with holiday creep, Black Friday is a big shopping day

A report from Adobe says Americans have already spent $25.5 billion online this month, a 3.5 percent increase from a year ago.

The NRF, the nation’s largest retail group, expects holiday sales to rise 3.6 percent for November and December, better than the 3 percent growth seen for those months past year.

The crowd at Farmington’s Walmart Supercenter was not quite as large as in years past, but there were still plenty of shoppers on hand to take advantage of “Black Friday” sales that began at 6 p.m. Thanksgiving Day. For years, Black Friday has started the holiday shopping season in the United States with retailers offering steep discounts.

Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE:WMT) was one of the best gainers, but only just outpacing the 0.4% gain by the S&P 500 market bellwether. Most lived in the area, but some came far, far away. “You would be shocked at the amount of money we’ve spent here in the last two hours”.

Shoppers were on the hunt for deals and were at the stores for entertainment Friday.

Explaining the online move, Pete Moorey, head of campaigns at Which? said: “More and more people are now doing research online before they buy”. While specific prices are not listed for individual models, Walmart has the best price for the DJI Phantom 3 Standard Drone at $369.99 on Black Friday, so we imagine they will keep up the great prices for Cyber Monday. They said they wanted to give back the day to employees.

My answer is that while brick-and-mortar stores are slowly becoming less relevant for daily purchases, people love events.

“Victim of our success, we’ve run into lags on our site due to exceptionally high traffic”, spokeswoman Elle Steinbrecher said in an email. “I just bought a jacket”.

Nordstrom (NYSE:JWN), the fashion retailer, opened at 8 am on Black Friday, offering discounts of over 50% on selected items like shoes and dresses.

James Walker, founder of consumer rights and complaint resolution website resolver.co.uk, says: “When the dust settles on Black Friday, many people will be sitting at home looking at their credit card bills and the packages all around them thinking “why did I buy this?’, ‘what do you mean this is now on sale for less elsewhere” or ‘how am I going to afford all this?'”

Online shopping got off to a brisk start on Thursday.

Some of the biggest retailers in Dallas opened at 5 p.m., allowing for 30 consecutive hours of shopping.

And while the mall drew plenty of people, many veteran shoppers say it wasn’t as crowded as in years past.

“We’re giving guests a compelling opportunity to save 15% across Target’s broad assortment, plus the flexibility to shop the offer for two days in a way that’s most convenient to them – whether they want to shop online or in a store”, said Chief Information and Digital Officer Mike McNamara. A shopper carries items at Toys “R” Us, Thursday, Nov. 24, 2016 in Panama City, Fla.

“I do most everything online now”, Tate said.

In an effort to hold off advances from online rivals such as Amazon, traditional retailers have been moving discounts earlier in the month, linking their stores and websites more closely and finding ways to capitalize on the rise in mobile shopping.

“You don’t see those insane lines or people camping out any more, and I think it’s because everything is starting earlier and earlier”, Blair said.