Is This the Biggest Cyber Monday Ever?

Shoppers were on the hunt for deals and were at the stores for en.

Cowen & Co. estimates that Black Friday store traffic is down 3 % to 4%, while online traffic is up 20%-mostly on mobile devices.

Still, the store was not overwhelmed after the doors opened – a scene replicated across the country on what used to be the biggest shopping day of the year.

International Business Times reports that 94 percent of consumers plan to do a bulk of their holiday shopping online, and obviously the Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend is the absolute best to get the good deals – after all, it’s the weekend where people are searching for a bargain, and feeling a little carefree about spending money. “There will also be specific deals for shoppers using Alexa, the voice assistant in Echo”. Store executives say they see customers doing more research online before they go shop.

In 2015 nearly eighty million Americans visited online retail places on Black Friday representing an increase of 14% compared to the last previous year.

While Black Friday shopping often is stereotyped as an activity for moms and grandmas, Sean Redd of Fort Madison was having a blast.

There was a line before 3 p.m.at JC Penney on Thursday, said Matt Ludemann, manager of Golden Triangle Mall, which houses the store.

“We have a dinner, and you’d have to cut out early to make it, and that doesn’t seem right”, Kotleba said.

Retailers are sure to be emboldened by the online-selling tallies they are seeing so far this four-day shopping weekend.

After the Black Friday frenzy, consumers already have set their sights set on the next discount shopping target – Cyber Monday. “Can’t beat that.” But she said she wouldn’t shop at as many places as previous year. Mobile devices still struggled to deliver sales conversions (2.1 percent for smartphones), but traffic delivered the numbers, according to ChannelAdvisor. What seems to have helped the retailer’s cause was its Cartwheel app, which saw its highest number of new users and included plenty of Black Friday pre-sale deals.

Shoppers were on the hunt for deals and were at the stores for entertainment today as malls opened for what is still one of the busiest days of the year, even as the start of the holiday season edges ever earlier.

Now what about the most popular shopping categories?

Unlike many shopping centers and stores, Park Plaza was closed Thursday. On Wednesday, three times as many people were browsing online at retail sites compared with a year ago, according to Rakuten, which tracks online behaviour through the e-commerce platforms it provides. Sloan Dalley, of Pomona, gets excited as she finds one of the few remaining 55-inch Samsung television at Best Buy in Metro Pointe in Costa Mesa, Calif., on Black Friday, Nov. 25, 2016. The Woodrings don’t dare shop before 9 or 10 a.m. on Black Friday. We are a nation now constantly window shopping online and making digital purchases 24/7.

Information for this article was contributed by Lindsey Rupp and Sarah Very of Bloomberg News.