The day after Thanksgiving is one of the year‘s busiest shopping days

1. Early uses of “Black Friday” were negative, referring in the United States, for example, to a stock market crisis that occurred on Sept. 24, 1869.

2. References to the day after Thanksgiving as “Black Friday” date at least as far back as a 1951 Factory Management and Maintenance article on the topic of worker absences.

3. the term has come to describe the transition of stores from having negative returns (”in the red”) to making a profit (”in the black”).

4. Though it is not a federal holiday, Black Friday gained popularity for shopping since many employers give their workers the day off.

5. the Monday after Thanksgiving was termed “Cyber Monday” in 2005 after retailers noticed a spike in online sales that day.

6. Stampeding customers at the 5 a.m. opening of a Valley Stream, N.Y., Wal-Mart on Black Friday 2008 trampled a store employee to death. As part of a deal the company made with local prosecutors to avoid criminal charges, all 92 Wal-Marts in New York State are required to implement crowd-management plans this year.

7. In 2008, more than 172 million shoppers visited retail stores during Black Friday weekend, spending an average of $372.57 each.

8. Last year, the three most popular items purchased online on Black Friday were the Nintendo Wii console, the Ugg Australia “Classic Short” boot, and the Sony BDP-S350 1080p Blu-ray Disc player.

9. In 2008, in-store sales of electronics fell for the first time in Black Friday history.

10. Ninety percent of malls say that this year, their special holiday hours start on Black Friday.

• Associated Content
• Consumer Reports
• History.com
• International Council of Shopping Centers
• National Retail Foundation
• New York Daily News
• Pricegrabber.com
• Forbes.com
• LinguistList.org, University of Eastern Michigan

While Black Friday deals on laptops and HDTVs helped to lure shoppers to stores and online sites over the weekend, it’s still unclear whether sales of consumer electronics products really brought retailers much holiday cheer.

Across all product categories, including electronics, spending at stores and Web sites from Nov. 26 to no. 29 rose a scant 0.5 percent to $41.2 billion from the year before, according to the National Retail Federation (NRF).

The biggest sales gains seem to have sprung up online, particularly for consumer electronics products.

Shoppers lined up for hours in the wee hours of Friday morning at Wal-Mart stores in hopes of scoring a $198 e-Machine or $298 HP laptop before supplies ran out.

Meanwhile, though, Internet sales shot up 11 percent from a year ago to $595 million, according to Comscore. A total of five sites attracted for than four million visitors each, including tech-specific Best buy Sites and Apple.com Worldwide Sites along with Amazon, Wal-Mart, and Target.

At BestBuy’s brick-and-mortar stores, early morning shopping crowds were bigger this year than last year, said CEO Brian Dunn, in a Bloomberg TV interview.

But a check of Apple Stores suggested that Black Friday sales of Macs could actually show a year-over-year decline, according to Apple Insider.

With prices down on products ranging from flat panel TVs to clothing and toys, average spending per consumer — across both brick-and-mortar and online stores — dropped to $343.31 from a total of $372.57 a year ago, the NRF said.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) – Retailers drew bigger crowds over the “Black Friday” weekend compared to a year earlier and likely generated stronger sales of electronic products such as TVs and cameras, according to a trade group.

The Consumer Electronics Association said Monday the volume of technology products sold appeared consistent with the group’s earlier forecast of 6% growth. By contrast, consumer spending on electronics saw a “significant decline” during the same weekend in 2008.

Overall retail sales, however, were weak during the Black Friday weekend, a separate survey found. the National Retail Federation said the average consumer spent less in 2009 compared to 2008 – about $343 per person vs. $372.

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, marks the beginning of the holiday shopping season. most retailers offer deep savings on a variety of products, with sales typically lasting through the weekend.

Online retailers such as Amazon /quotes/comstock/15*!amzn/quotes/nls/amzn (AMZN 135.91, +4.17, +3.17%) also follow up with their own “Cyber Monday” sales event after the weekend is over.

The CEA’s annual survey found that high-definition televisions, digital cameras and Blu-ray movie players were the top attractions. Retailers offered discounts on older models of plasma and LCD TVs and some Blu-ray players sold for less than $100. just three years ago, the first Blu-ray player to hit the market cost $1,000.

According to the CEA’s survey, more than half of consumers who went to stores over Black Friday weekend sought to take advantage of specific holiday promotions for the gifts they sought. “Nearly 80% of those surveyed believe traffic was at least as busy, if not more so, than last year,” the CEA also said.

In late 2008, sales of electronic goods and virtually all products fell after the United States suffered a severe financial panic and the economy went deeper into a recession. While sales are improving along with the broader economy, U.S. unemployment is still unusually high at more than 10% and a slow recovery is likely to continue to retard demand for retail goods.

The CEA, however, said it expects a big improvement this year for electronic goods. Eighty percent of adults expect to buy technology as a gift this holiday season, which the CEA said is the “highest figure in the history of the study.”

“Results from this weekend suggest consumer technology will be the must-have gift this holiday and will lead economic recovery in 2010,” said Gary Shapiro, president of the CEA.

Jeffry Bartash is a reporter for MarketWatch in Washington.

So much for holiday traditions. Shoppers aren’t waiting for Cyber Monday to start their online shopping, judging by statistics issued by a number of market research sources over the weekend.

Holiday season retail e-commerce spending in the U.S. on Friday, Nov. 27, reached $595 million ” up 11 percent from $534 million the same day last year, according to Comscore, which tracks online activity. Altogether online holiday shopping for Nov. 1 through 27 was $10.6 billion, up 3 percent from $10.3 billion during the same period in 2008.

“Black Friday, better known as a shopping bonanza in brick-and-mortar retail stores, is increasingly becoming one of the landmark days in the online holiday shopping world,” said Comscore chairman Gian Fulgoni, in a statement.

“While this acceleration in spending suggests the online holiday season may be shaping up slightly more optimistically than anticipated, it may also reflect the heavy discounting and creative promotions being put forth by retailers that now encompass the use of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter,” Fulgoni said. “Cyber Monday ” the traditional kick-off to the online holiday shopping season ” and the subsequent weeks will be the real test for how online retailers fare this season.”

Experian Hitwise, another company that tracks the Internet and E-commerce, said Amazon.com was the top retail Web site visited on Black Friday, receiving 13.55 percent of all U.S. visits among the top 500 retail Web sites. Comscore said the number of unique visitors at Amazon.com was up 28 percent from Black Friday 2008.

Wal-Mart was the second most visited site on Black Friday with 11.18 percent of all visits, according to Experian Hitwise. Comscore said visits to the retail giant’s Website were up 22 percent over Black Friday 2008.

Other hot shopping sites on Black Friday included Apple.com (up 39 percent from last year, according to Comscore), Target.com, BestBuy.com, Staples.com and Dell.com.

Statistics for the results of Cyber Monday are expected as soon as Tuesday afternoon.

Online retailers in the U.S. rang up $595 million on Black Friday, an 11% increase from the day a year ago, comScore said.

According to the market-research firm, U.S. consumers have spent $10.57 billion online from the beginning of the month to Nov. 27, then $318 million on Thanksgiving and $595 million the following day. Pre-Thanksgiving e-commerce sales were up 3%, while Thanksgiving-day sales rose 10%.

Black Friday marked the second-highest day in terms of online spending this year, after Nov. 19, when consumers spent $641 million.

“This is a very encouraging start,” comScore’s chairman, Gian Fulgoni, said in a statement. he noted, however, that aggressive marketing may be responsible for some of the uptick and that the coming weeks would be “the real test” for holiday-season e-commerce.

The retail sites for Amazon.com, Apple, Best Buy, Target and Wal-Mart each saw more than 4 million unique visits Friday, comScore said, with Amazon receiving the most traffic (up 28% from 2008). Apple, Best Buy and Wal-Mart sites also experienced double-digit traffic gains. According to Experian Hitwise, another Web monitoring firm, other e-commerce standouts included Sears, Staples and Dell.

Of a handful of Black Friday deal-spotting sites monitored by comScore, BFads.net saw 3.9 million unique visits on Friday, a 4% increased from last year, comScore said. BlackFriday.info traffic fell 17% to 3.5 million uniques, while Black-Friday.net more than doubled to 2.3 million unique visits. Traffic to Black Friday sites overall was up 9%, Hitwise said.

Sales on one of America’s busiest shopping days, Black Friday, were marginally ahead of 2008, but shoppers steered clear of higher priced items to hunt out bargains.

US shoppers moved away from full price merchandise and luxury items on Friday, which fell the day after the Thanksgiving and is the day consumers traditionally storm the shops. 195m shoppers visited stores and went online, up from 172m in 2008.

The average spend, at $343.31 per person for the Friday, Saturday and Sunday, was substantially down from last year’s $372.57, indicating a desire for discounted and cut-price stock, according to analysts.

Total spend over the weekend was 0.5% higher than last year, at $41.2bn.

Hardest hit by price-conscious shoppers were the luxury retailers, which failed to capitalise on the increased footfall, according to industry observers.

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NEW YORK — Holiday shopping held steady through the weekend after retailers saw a huge crowd of bargain shoppers buying discounted flat-panel TVs and fleece jackets on Black Friday, the traditional post-Thanksgiving Day shopping spree.

Economic worries about jobs were still apparent as shoppers stuck to their lists and focused on practical and small-ticket items for themselves and for their loved ones, resulting in a mildly encouraging start to the season.

Online sales on Thursday and Friday, however, rose 11 percent to $913 million, according to data released Sunday by comScore, an Internet research firm.

According to preliminary figures released Saturday by ShopperTrak, a research firm that tracks more than 50,000 outlets, sales rose 0.5 percent to $10.66 billion Friday, compared with a year ago. That was on top of a 3 percent increase last year.

The National Retail Federation trade group said Sunday it is sticking to its forecast for holiday sales to decline 1 percent from last year.

The question now is whether merchants will be able to keep customers coming back for the rest of the season.

A year after suffering the biggest sales decline in four decades, the nation’s merchants pulled out all the stops in stores and online to keep the momentum going for the holiday weekend, further blurring the lines between their Web-based and land-based businesses.

Major merchants including J.C. Penney Co. and Sears Holdings Corp., which operates Kmart and Sears, broke new ground this year by making many of their early morning Black Friday specials available on their Web sites at the same time.

Marketing gurus have started calling the season a “Twitter Christmas” as merchants have been tweeting deals and offering previews of discounts on Facebook pages.

Sears spokesman Tom Aiello noted Sunday that since Wednesday, the chain has sent out a few dozen tweets to inform customers of bargains for the weekend and for the Monday after Thanksgiving, which is heavily promoted as Cyber Monday but could lose some of it steam this year.

“Forget Black Friday for bricks and Cyber Monday for clicks — this year it’s all about making it easy for customers to satisfy their shopping fix … wherever and whenever,” said John Long, a retail strategist at Kurt Salmon Associates.

Long, however, noted that “we’re still seeing cautious spending. The pie isn’t increasing whether you decide to buy in the stores or online.”

Laura Gurski, a partner in the retail practice at A.T. Kearney, a global management consultant, described the start as “encouraging” and noted that shoppers have more “confidence in what they’re buying” because retailers are communicating better through social media in addition to traditional marketing.

She believes the weekend’s results offered signals that consumers, many of whom had cut spending all year to bare-bones necessities, had saved up for the holidays and were opening their wallets — even if just a little.

Shoppers’ cautious mood was evident.

Allentown, Pa. resident Jamie Sandrock, 27, who was visiting New York City on Saturday and was outside toy store FAO Schwarz, said she got up at 7 a.m. Friday and took advantage of online deals on Amazon.com, American Eagle Outfitters and Sephora.

That’s a big change from the Black Fridays of years past, when Sandrock would get up at 3:30 a.m. to head to Target or best buy.

“Last year, I was part of the stampede,” she said. “This year, I didn’t have to shower. I didn’t have to get dressed. all I had to do was click.”

But Sandrock, who has been trying to find a job in nursing since she graduated from college in may, said she’s slashing her holiday spending to $350 from last year’s $500.

After losing his job in the insurance industry earlier this year, Charles Tompkins, 48, who was at the Freehold, N.J., Raceway Mall on Saturday, said he’ll be spending “a lot less” this year than he did in 2008.

“My daughter is in college, so my wife will get her clothes, shoes, stuff like that. in years past, my gift to her probably would have been to take her to a Broadway show, but this year she knows her old dad can’t swing that,” Tompkins said.

Nevertheless, overall reports Sunday from malls and stores were somewhat comforting and different from last year when stores had a decent Black Friday before sales tanked the rest of the weekend and season.

The Mall of America in Minneapolis, saw 325,000 visitors Friday and Saturday, the most in 17 years. Spokeswoman Bridget Jewell said traffic remained steady throughout the weekend and said she’s fairly confident that weekend sales will be up from last year.

Karen MacDonald, a spokeswoman at Taubman Centers, which operates 24 malls nationwide, said sales Friday were up anywhere from mid-single digits to double-digit increases compared with a year ago. On Saturday, sales were anywhere from unchanged to up slightly.

Shoppers bought about half the items sold for themselves, she said, but the buying was focused on basics like denim, fleece jackets and boots, she said. Electronics remained hot throughout the weekend.

A more complete sales picture won’t be known until Thursday, when the nation’s retailers report November sales.

AP Retail Writer Bruce Shipkowski contributed to the report in Freehold, N.J.

Just when you think the furious pace of Black Friday is over and you can rest, letting the holidays go by with little more shopping, think again.

Last week I described how to save money during the mad rush in stores the day after Thanksgiving. but online retailers are just getting started. Throughout December, there will be additional ways to save money.

Interestingly, most of these days are Mondays, each with a marketing name to help keep them straight. Why Monday? It’s the first day back in the office, or the kids are back in school, so more focused bargain hunting takes place.

The first Monday after Thanksgiving has become known as Cyber Monday, and it’s the official kickoff to the online holiday shopping season. Cyber Monday usually carries forward the frenzy of Black Friday because retailers and consumers are still geared up from those great deals and are fully in shopping mode.

What’s a little different about Cyber Monday is that it is more about shopping than buying. with less than a month until Christmas, ideas for gifts and personal wants abound while people make their lists and check them twice.

This year, I challenge people to act sooner than usual. Why? the deals are not going to be bigger later in the season as in previous years. Retailers have lower inventory levels than last year, and they will take advantage of lower supply and relatively greater demand.

Once Cyber Monday passes, it’s two weeks until Green Monday. My speculation is that the term comes from the fact retailers see lots of “green,” or money, on that day, two Mondays before Christmas. with less than two weeks until the holiday, more people make online purchases on that Monday than at any other time during the holiday season. as a result, retailers tend to push a few more promotions and try to get people to buy.

Finally, the newest labeled Monday I have heard about in the online retail world is Brown Monday — a reference to shipping items to arrive before Christmas. My guess is that “brown” is based on UPS as a go-to shipper of items purchased online. Typically the regular shipping cut-off for Christmas is approximately three days before the 25th, so the Monday before might be a safe date (it’s still possible to do overnight delivery at a heavy price).

Either way, shoppers should be looking for free shipping offers or taking advantage of either shipping to the store or picking up at a store to save more time and money.

Monday usually isn’t my favorite time of the week, but during the holiday season, it is the day when you will see more promotions, discounts and deals. but this is a year when buying earlier is a smarter approach, because discounts won’t be deeper at the end of the season and items may already be gone.

As soon as an item meets your deal requirements, buy it. as a bargain hunter, you will have to dig a little more, but it will pay off.

“King of Koupons” Kevin Strawbridge is president of DealTaker.com, an online shopping Web site owned by Media General that collects and shares online coupons and deals. E-mail or follow @dealtaker on Twitter.

All the hope and hype that went into Black Friday preparations this year didn’t give us much. Year-over-year, retail sales grew only 0.5%, from $10.61 billion to $10.66 billion, according to ShopperTrak. this follows a 3% gain last year, when the world was gripped by the panic triggered by the global financial crisis. in 2007, the situation was much better, with Black Friday sales leaping 8.3%.

The slight gain this year came even with the extra efforts retailers made, which included, in some cases, opening on Thanksgiving Day and making an extra push via social media. these measures effectively helped retailers tread water.

Worries about the momentum from Black Friday fading through the holiday season are even tougher, now that we know there isn’t much momentum on which to rely. Shopper traffic was heavy this year, according to ShopperTrak, which led to much of the early optimism. But, the lookers weren’t converting at the rates retailers had hoped.

The action came online this year, even ahead of Cyber Monday. Internet shopping increased 35%, with the average order reaching $170.19, according to online retail analytics company Coremetrics.

Despite the difficult results last week, ShopperTrak is maintaining its holiday season growth estimate of 1.6%, with co-founder bill Martin saying in a company statement that the forecast “remains intact.”

November 28 — It must be clear by now, as a Boston Golf Examiner reader pointed out, that Tiger Woods was on his way to take advantage of pre-Cyber Monday deals when he cracked up his car on the morning of Black Friday.

• Tiger Woods’ life has become a soap opera, as these photos illustrate

And now, since his wife, Elin Nordegren, smashed his SUV with one of his old clubs and likely damaged it beyond repair, the world’s greatest golfer must need a good deal on Nike irons and fairway metals — let alone a Cadillac Escalade — even more.

Yup. Mystery solved. no affair, no pissed-off wife, no domestic violence. just Tiger Woods looking to get a jump on all those Black Friday and Cyber Monday shoppers.

Or, perhaps, there’s a tad more to it. if so, you might want to catch up on all the rumors and innuendos about what really happened when Woods cracked his car into a fire hydrant early Friday morning at Tiger Woods’ injuries from wife not car accident.

Remember all the way back to Thursday when Tiger Woods was just the greatest golfer in the world? Take a walk down memory lane with this video of Woods’ greatest golf shots:

Tiger Woods’ greatest golf shots caught on video