Black Friday starts early for some holiday shoppers, retailers

Overall, the group predicts that 135.8 million people will shop during the long Thanksgiving weekend, versus the 133.7 million who did so in 2014.

In what has become something of a Black Friday tradition around the country, at least two punchouts were reported in Kentucky at separate shopping malls, one in Louisville and one in Florence, the New York Daily News reports. However, some that came to the malls brought their food with them. The store opened at 6 o’clock Thursday night. Ellingwood said after the shopping is over, she’ll go home and take a nap.

“The shopping this morning is very quick lines”, she said.

“We were at several stores last night”.

Combine that feeling with once a year deals that you can’t pass up and you get madness, all bottled up in one store.

Sales Associate Brandon Stevens said they had many people taking advantage of the sales they offered. Though some headed in just to see what was marked down, others had something special in mind. “But when I got here this morning it was actually pretty dead”, said Andrea Hrinn. “Kids’ toys, that’s about it, and PJs”. “Got a speaker, help me out through this journey”, said customer Edwin Hernandez.

Many stores pushed discounts on holiday merchandise early. This accounts for 58.7 percent of shoppers and is down slightly from a year ago, when 61.1 percent hit the stores.

“We’ve had to re-arrange our Thanksgiving times so we ate at noon in order to be able to leave and go out shopping”, said Hicks.

“We have been here since 3 a.m.”, Kevin Carter, of St. Albans, said on his way to look for men’s wear sales at Queens Center Mall.

On Thanksgiving day, traditional brick-and-mortar retailers are trying to compete with the always open online retailers who are already seeing sales surge again this year. Meanwhile, some retailers such as Game Stop, have elected to keep their doors closed on Thanksgiving Day.

Some standing in lines said deals just as good could be found online.

This is one of the busiest weekends of the year for shopping and it’s not over on Sunday. Because even better ones might be coming on Cyber Monday.