Shoppers search for Black Friday deals at local malls

NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay was generally upbeat about the Thanksgiving-weekend results, based on a survey released Sunday by the association and Prosper Insights & Analytics.

And one shopper says he got a good deal on electronics.

The number of shoppers rose to 154 million from 151 million in 2015. The day observed significant trend away from what has been known as the biggest shopping day annually, for traditional brick-and-mortar retailers.

Butts, who hit the stores at 6 a.m. Friday, said shopping and spending time with family are what she loves about being a part of the Black Friday buzz.

The NRF survey found that 44% shopped online and 40% went in-store. Black Friday set a new record by surpassing the three-billion-dollar mark for the first time at $3.34 billion (21.6 percent growth YoY) while Thanksgiving accounted for the remaining $1.93 billion.

West said last year was her first time shopping on Black Friday, and she made a decision to do it again this year because of friends.

Consumers increasingly turned online during the Black Friday weekend, boosting traffic during the crucial start of the holiday shopping season.

Sean Jensen, who was browsing inside a Wal-Mart in Duarte shortly after 5:30 a.m., said that the Pokemon Moon game he planned to buy earlier was out of stock there.

“Every year we try to make it run a little better than last year, so we refined the process, but we really haven’t changed much overall except the items we do sell”, Warner said.

It’s not a surprising finding given that Target tgt and Kohl’s mss , among others, reported record online sales on Thanksgiving.

With deals more widely available throughout November and December, Thanksgiving weekend may be less important.

But the NRF, which tracks consumer visits and spending data, said those consumers also spent about $10 less on average – about $290 this year compared to almost $300 in 2015.

According to the NRF, 50 percent of consumers that shopped in store indicated that they were compelled to do so the deals were too good to pass up. About three-quarters of people’s purchasing power – $214.13 – went toward buying gifts.

On Friday, Amazon.com announced that its Thanksgiving and Black Friday orders were on pace to pass the same two days for previous year, due to more shopping on mobile devices and a heavy increase in the number of discounts.