© Archyde.com. Shoppers outside a Target store in Chicago on Friday. Photograph: Jim Vondrowska/Archyde.com.
Raleigh, North Carolina/New York (Archyde.com) – After Thanksgiving turkey on Thursday, buyers were expected to flock to U.S. stores in record numbers to snap up Black Friday deals, but the busiest shopping day of the year was not seen. Only a few numbers on shop doors as the weather cools.
“Only about 20 people have come through the kiosks so far,” said Jimena Silva, an employee at Target (NYSE:) in Raleigh, North Carolina, which saw heavy rain between 6 and 8 a.m. Friday.
Silva, 23, added that the number of customers in the store was higher in previous seasons, but she expects more customers to come later on Friday.
According to the National Association of Retailers, an estimated 166.3 million people plan to shop from Thanksgiving Day to the following Monday, about eight million more than last year.
But with occasional rain in some parts of the country, shops were less crowded than expected on Black Friday morning.
A report from Adobe (NASDAQ:) Analytics showed that US shoppers’ spending on online purchases increased 3 percent on Thanksgiving Day this year, with mobile purchases leading the increase. Online Black Friday sales are expected to reach nine billion, up a modest 1 percent from last year.
Retail companies offer deep discounts, both online and in their stores, which may hurt margins in the fourth quarter of the year.
(Prepared by Mahmoud Abdel Gawad for the Arabic Bulletin – Edited by Duaa Mohamed)