Is Black Friday worth the crowds to get the deals?

As shoppers continued their Black Friday shopping spree, some local businesses said they feel overshadowed by bigger stores.

The National Retail Federation estimating 136 million people will shop this four day holiday weekend, with overall sales for November and December increasing about 4 percent to 630 billion dollars, when compared to the same shopping period previous year.

Goody’s Manager Sierra Hunt has experienced the Black Friday madness for the past decade and says customers enjoy the earlier shopping hours.

Black Friday had an early start again this year as shoppers flocked to shopping centers, malls and stores across Georgia.

For stores like Best Buy, the holiday season puts employees to the test during the busiest time of the year.

“We usually shop the day after Thanksgiving every year – it’s always been a fun thing to do while my family is still in town”, Bingham said.

US e-commerce sales surged on Thanksgiving, raising questions about the fate of brick-and-mortar Black Friday promotions, the traditional kickoff to the holiday season.

ShopperTrak is the leading global provider of location-based analytics, providing insights into consumer behavior, enabling their clients to better understand their customers and enhance the shopping experience to increase traffic, conversion and transaction size.

Some retailers in the United Kingdom decided not to take part in the event this year.

“The price discounting has been creeping toward Halloween”, he said.

The Duluth resident planned on hitting some other stores, but she didn’t consider herself a rabid bargain hunter of Black Friday deals.

Fueled by surging demand for Samsung 4K TVs, Apple iPad Air2s and Star Wars toys, the $4.47 billion shelled out on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday combined also marked a new high, Adobe Systems reported Saturday. “But, they had the Black Friday sale basically a week ago”.

Simeon Siegel, an analyst at Nomura, saw decent crowds at the Westfield Garden State Plaza mall in Paramus, New Jersey, but still expected numerous shoppers to already have made purchases online. “Simply put, the consumer is becoming much more savvy and sophisticated, reducing the need to wait in-line”, said Chen.

“Just catching up”, said Antonia White. “I think we’ve seen the peak of it. In private, many retail CEOs wish they could wave a magic wand and do away with it”.

“We knew the sales were going to be really good here”, said Sonia Lucio of Bemidji. He bought an Xbox One and extra controller, saving about $150 on the console, he said.