Modern trends change traditional Black Friday

According to the National Retail Federation, 137.4 million people plan to shop during Thanksgiving weekend.

Rest of nearly $702 million in online sales was made through the desktop computers.

Black Friday is here, and bargain-seeking holiday shoppers are out in force.

“Two years back when the dollar was at par you could’ve gotten a good deal”, said Montrealer Arithra Debnath, shopping at a Best Buy electronics store in that city.

The surge in online sales this year has led Cowen & Co. analysts to rebrand Black Friday as “couch Friday” since so many people are shopping without leaving home.

Though volume was light on Wall Street with several major traders dark on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, the S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and the NASDAQ hit record highs after modest gains by late morning.

“We saw one of our strongest days ever online”, chief executive Brian Cornell of discount retailer Target said. Many online retailers offer free shipping, free returns and numerous same deals offered in stores, so many shoppers may have opted to trade the long lines for a click of the mouse.

J.C. Penney will open its doors at 3 p.m. on Thursday to reach shoppers before they tuck into their Thanksgiving feasts. Amazon launched a Black Friday Deals Store on November 8.

Black Friday is here, and the holiday shoppers are already out in force.

The announcement from Centennial Real Estate to close its malls on Thanksgiving Day came soon after the nation’s largest shopping center, the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, announced that it would be closed on Thanksgiving.

“Some people come for the deals, but a lot of people come for much more than that”.

To seal the deal, Amazon wisely made improvements to its mobile app ahead of the holiday season. Target will be pushing its Cyber Monday deals on Sunday and spreading them to the stores as well as online, and CEO Brian Cornell thinks those days could be the busiest of the year.

Broker also prefers the traditional Black Friday, waking up early to start shopping by 6 a.m. This year, Amazon said it is featuring 75,000 deals during the week of Cyber Monday.

The NRF, the nation’s largest retail group, expects holiday sales to rise 3.6 percent for November and December, better than the 3 percent growth seen for those months past year.

“I love hearing the plastic rip”, she said.

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

But for many shoppers, Friday was just as much about the people – the people one goes shopping with, and the people one watches along the way. Singewald said she was merely the vehicle – “and sometimes the credit card” – as her daughters worked on their shopping lists. Shops also are using more in-store demonstrations and events to attract customers and boosting mapping capacities on mobile apps to help guide shoppers.

Online spending on Black Friday was expected to reach £1 billion, up 16% on a year ago, while it was anticipated that the majority who opt for the high street will spend a lower total of around £961 million.