US Black Friday online sales total USD3.34-B

Almost 109 million people shopped from their computers and mobile devices from Thanksgiving Day through Sunday, while about 99 million hit the sales in brick-and-mortar stores, according to a survey from the trade group National Retail Federation.

Shoppers flow in and out of stores, taking advantage of holiday sales. That’s compared to previous year, when shoppers were more evenly split, with 103 million browsing online and 102 million in stores.

Online sales on Friday hit $1.70 billion as of 3 p.m., according to Adobe Digital Index, after reaching $1.13 billion on Thursday, up nearly 14 percent from a year ago.

Shoppers also are projected to order more on Amazon on Black Friday that they did in 2015, said the online retailer.

And of the people who went to actual stores over this shopping period, 75 percent did so on Black Friday, up 3.4 percent from a year ago, the NRF said.

Last year, Alberta had the biggest jump in spending over other parts of the country at 15 percent but experts don’t expect to see the same spending pattern this year because of the economy.

There were $905 million in mobile sales, representing 33.2 per cent of all sales compared with 27 per cent in 2014. Stores like JCPenney and Kohl’s began promoting Black Friday sales prices online this week.

According to a report in Tech Crunch, mobiles had a significant impact on the record e-commerce sales on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday.

Shoppers pass a retail store as they walk along Fifth Avenue on Black Friday in NY.

The Waltons were just one of many families to take on the crowds and long lines for Thanksgiving shopping.

Apple (AAPL) products, notably discounted Apple iPads and some Macbooks, were among the big Black Friday sellers online, Adobe said.

Mobile shopping accounts for 57% of visits this year and 40% of sales, both new records.

Based on the dismal early November performance, Adobe slashed their double-digit holiday season online sales growth expectation to the low single digit range.

Retailers try to attract shoppers with deep discounts, sometimes as much as 85 per cent.

The Adobe figure is collected from 21 billion online visits to 4,500 US retail sites since November 1.