Thanksgiving shopping holds allure as deal seekers flood stores and online

The deepest average discounts for Black Friday came from leading online retailer Amazon.com Inc, with an average of 42 per cent off, compared with 33 per cent off at Walmart, 35 per cent at Target and 36 per cent at Best Buy, according to e-commerce analytics firm Clavis Insight.

The National Retail Federation, 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 previous year.

He said: “In contrast, for some United Kingdom retailers Black Friday is now the end-point for longer sales events which effectively diffuse the artificial panic of previous years”.

US online retail sales approached $2 billion on Thanksgiving Day for the first time, up 15.6 percent from a year ago, powered in part by a surge in mobile sales.

Some analysts believe the shoppers are more inclined to spend money this year now that a long, bruising presidential campaign has been concluded.

Department stores and online are neck-and-neck when it comes to where consumers plan to shop this season, according to the NRF survey. Many flocked to stores on Thanksgiving night to snatch up deals.

IBD’S TAKE: Black Friday and Cyber Monday always provide a sales surge for Amazon, but shares are trading about 8% below their all-time high set on October 6, and also below the key 50-day moving average.

Colley said the 55-inch television, which was about $200 cheaper than its original $500 price tag, was sold out online earlier Thursday.

Although many US consumers have only just started shopping Black Friday deals on Amazon’s site, the company says it’s on track to beat last year’s sales holiday in terms of items ordered, with Alexa devices, like the Echo Dot, Fire TV Stick and Alexa Voice Remote among the best sellers so far. “The prices, you know, come down for people like me …”

This weekend is crucial to set the tone for the holiday season.

It is still Black Friday, however, which Mullies said is an “all hands on deck” situation for the store.

This time last year, Amazon reported that customers around the world ordered more than 54 million items – that’s a staggering 629 items each second – and this year they expect to surpass those numbers.

By Friday morning, online Black Friday sales tracked by Adobe reached $490 million.

The Amazon Cyber Week 2016 first deals are on the Amazon Devices. Stocks continues their post-election rally with both the S&P and the Dow poised to close up more than 1 percent on the short holiday week.

Amazon will have more than 75,000 deals during the week of Cyber Monday. The retailer was offering a 50-inch Hisense 4K TV for 249.99 USA dollars.

It’s going to be an exciting and insane day, say retail workers, some of whom started shifts on Thanksgiving Day.