November 24, 2017•Update: November 25, 2017
By Safvan Allahverdi
WASHINGTON
Online shopping dominated Black Friday in the U.S., overtaking sales at traditional brick-and-mortar stores.
In a bid to rake in consumer dollars, stores across the country opened to masses of shoppers scrambling to find the best deals on items ranging from televisions to clothing.
But spent more than $2.87 billion online Thanksgiving evening in an early official sales kickoff, up 16.8 percent compared to last year, according to online marketing analysis company Adobe Analytics.
Cyber Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving, is expected by Adobe Analytics to be the largest online shopping day in history, with an expected $6.6 billion in sales.
In all, online holiday spending is expected to generate $107 billion in sales, an increase of 14 percent on .
"I’ve already bought the stuff I needed online," David Flores, who was shopping at an electronics store, told Anadolu Agency. "But it’s also fun to walk around and check the deals in person rather than sitting in front of a computer."
"It’s not like it used to be in the past," said another shopper, 64-year-old Betty Murray, claiming there were "much better" Black Friday deals and offers in past years.
"But this is more than going outside and buying things; it’s more like having fun” and recalling past memories, Murray added.
The extreme deals offered by retailers normally draw hordes of excited customers to shopping .
Despite the online shopping trend, many people preferred to head out to the stores and jostle with other customers to get what they wanted.
"I came here last night and waited in line for about nine hours," Juana Martinez said, adding she went back home and took a nap for a "couple hours" after purchasing the camera she was "dreaming of" and came back to continue her shopping.
Black Friday generally marks the start of the Christmas holiday shopping season. But unlike previous years when sales would start Friday, many U.S. retailers announced their doors would open on Thanksgiving night.
As they offered huge discounts on various goods, shoppers waited in long queues for hours in the cold to snap them up.
Black Friday has routinely been referred to as the busiest shopping day of the year, but according to the International Council of Shopping Centers, the highest sales day of the year usually strikes the Saturday before Christmas.
