Mobile shopping continues to make an impact on Thanksgiving and Black Friday

For countless days, it seemed politics and the election were the only thing filling up the television screen this month.

“We like to scope it out in person, then we go online”, said Natalie Kelly, a hospitality worker in Florida who was shopping at a mall in Manhattan earlier this week.

Initial estimates suggest the discount shopping day is set to beat the £1.9bn in Black Friday sales recorded past year. But there are still opportunities to snag deals on gifts this year.

At the South Shore Plaza mall in Braintree, Massachusetts, stores appeared busier than a year ago, Kate Ferrara, a partner in Deloitte’s Boston office, told CNBC Friday.

Many shoppers are choosing to skip the crowds and shop online.

On Friday, Macy’s website was so jammed that shoppers reportedly had to wait as long as several minutes to connect – an eternity in Internet time for some consumers.

Several leading retail analysts project a three to four per cent rise in holiday shopping sales in 2016 compared with previous year.

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, vies with the Saturday before Christmas, in being considered to be the busiest shopping day of the year. But its popularity has been on the wane with the rise of online shopping and cheap deals throughout the year.

“It’s better than coming in the store”. In 2015, almost 30 million people shopped on Thanksgiving – an increase from 2014 but down from the 45 million who shopped on the holiday in 2013. Malloy said she hadn’t yet shopped online but usually does so. Her relief over the absence of high-pressure shopping was palpable.

“This is the first time I’ve done this”, Leis said. “There’s just certain places that you walk into and they just have awesome deals”, Ms. Pastrell said.

“Well, 30 years ago, I started with just my mother, going to Breilly’s Department Store”.

Julie Singewald’s Black Friday started at 4 a.m.at an outlet mall.

“We got some great deals”, Kotleba said.

“I don’t like the idea of it”, said Lauren Glynn. “Never pay full price”, she said.

Still, some shoppers only came out on Friday as an act of defiance against retailers opening their doors on the national holiday. “One is even when the dollar was down around 64 or 65 cents, Canadians were still heading south of the border to find deals”. “I checked to see if it was a good price or a bad price”, Dubbs said. “The last couple Cyber Mondays in particular have seen some excellent deals on name brand TVs from Samsung, Sony and Panasonic”, he says.

That’s partly because “retailers have made it not just Black Friday day – it’s Black Friday week”, says Maureen Atkinson, a senior partner with retail consultancy Global Retail Advisors.

However, analysts generally agree that for retailers who have customers that are more price-sensitive, it makes sense to stay open. Shops also are using more in-store demonstrations and events to attract customers and boosting mapping capacities on mobile apps to help guide shoppers.

Numerous nation’s mall operators and the big retailers that anchor them, such as J.C. Penney and Macy’s, are sticking with what they would like to see established as a new Thanksgiving tradition.

Pink manager Haley Carpenter said her store, a Victoria’s Secret lingerie line aimed at the college set, had been jammed with customers late Thursday until 1 a.m. Friday and again after the store reopened at 6 a.m. It may mean the early bird will get the good deals so start your bargain hunting early in the morning.