Af­ter weeks of push­ing ear­ly deals, re­tail­ers in the Unit­ed States and some oth­er coun­tries tried to se­duce cus­tomers with promis­es of big­ger dis­counts on Black Fri­day, the sales event that still reigns as the un­of­fi­cial kick-off of the hol­i­day shop­ping sea­son even if it’s lost some lus­tre.

De­part­ment stores, shop­ping malls and mer­chants — big and small — see the day af­ter Thanks­giv­ing as a way to en­er­gize shop­pers and to get them in­to phys­i­cal stores at a time when many gift-seek­ers do the bulk of their brows­ing and buy­ing on­line.

Enough tra­di­tion­al­ists must still be around, be­cause Black Fri­day re­mains the biggest day of the year for re­tail foot traf­fic in the U.S., ac­cord­ing to re­tail tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny Sen­sor­mat­ic So­lu­tions.

“Black Fri­day is still an in­cred­i­bly im­por­tant day for re­tail­ers,” Grant Gustafson, head of re­tail con­sult­ing and an­a­lyt­ics at Sen­sor­mat­ic, said. “It’s im­por­tant for them to be able to get shop­pers in­to their store to show them that ex­pe­ri­ence of what it’s like to browse and touch and feel items. It al­so can be a bell­wether for re­tail­ers on what to ex­pect for the rest of the hol­i­day sea­son.”

At Ma­cy’s Her­ald Square in Man­hat­tan, there was a steady stream of shop­pers as of 7:30 a.m. on Fri­day, an hour and a half af­ter the flag­ship store opened. Dis­counts in­clud­ed 40% to 50% off most boots and shoes. The prices of many hand­bags al­so were list­ed as half-off.

Ker­es­sa Clark, 50, and her daugh­ter Morghan, 27, were vis­it­ing New York from Wilm­ing­ton, North Car­oli­na, and ar­rived at the store at 6:15 a.m. “We set the alarm for 5 and got out the door by 6,” Morghan Clark said. “We don’t have a Ma­cy’s where we are from. I am ac­tu­al­ly shocked to see so many Black Fri­day deals be­cause so many things are on­line.”

Clark, who works as a nurse prac­ti­tion­er, said she was feel­ing bet­ter about the econ­o­my be­cause of Pres­i­dent-elect Don­ald Trump’s pend­ing re­turn to the White House and plans to spend $2,000 this hol­i­day sea­son, about $500 more than a year ago be­cause of her im­proved op­ti­mism.

She said she would not mind if prices are high­er next year as a re­sult of the tar­iffs on for­eign-made goods Trump has pledged to im­ple­ment. “Any­thing that can en­cour­age pro­duc­tion in the U.S. I am all for it, “ Clark said. “I am OK with pay­ing high­er prices.”

In the U.S., an­a­lysts en­vi­sion a sol­id hol­i­day shop­ping sea­son, though per­haps not as ro­bust as last year’s, with many shop­pers un­der fi­nan­cial pres­sure and cau­tious with their dis­cre­tionary spend­ing de­spite the eas­ing of in­fla­tion.

Re­tail­ers are even more un­der the gun to get shop­pers in to buy ear­ly and in bulk since there are five few­er days be­tween Thanks­giv­ing and Christ­mas this year.

Mall of Amer­i­ca, in Bloom­ing­ton, Min­neso­ta, hoped to sur­pass the 12,000 shop­pers who ar­rived last year with­in the first hour of the gi­ant shop­ping cen­tre’s 7 a.m. open­ing. This year, the mall is giv­ing the first 200 peo­ple in line at the cen­tre’s north en­trance a $25 gift card.

“Peo­ple come to get the deals, but more im­por­tant­ly, they come for the ex­cite­ment, the en­er­gy, the tra­di­tions sur­round­ing Black Fri­day,” Jill Renslow, Mall of Amer­i­ca’s chief busi­ness de­vel­op­ment and mar­ket­ing of­fi­cer, said.

Tar­get is of­fer­ing an ex­clu­sive book de­vot­ed to Tay­lor Swift’s Eras Tour and a bonus edi­tion of her “The Tor­tured Po­ets De­part­ment: The An­thol­o­gy” al­bum that on­ly will be avail­able in stores on Black Fri­day be­fore cus­tomers can buy them on­line start­ing Sat­ur­day.

Best Buy has in­tro­duced an ex­tend­ed-re­lease ver­sion of the door­buster, the lim­it­ed-time dai­ly dis­counts that for years were all the rage — and some­times the spark for ac­tu­al brawls. The na­tion’s largest con­sumer elec­tron­ics chain has re­leased door­buster deals every Fri­day since Nov. 8 and plans to con­tin­ue the week­ly pro­mo­tion through Dec. 20.

“(Stores) are very hun­gry for Black Fri­day to do well,” Mar­shal Co­hen, chief re­tail ad­vi­sor at mar­ket re­search firm Cir­cana, said. “They rec­og­nize that they’re not go­ing to clob­ber and win big growth in on­line be­cause the pie has got­ten so com­pet­i­tive. They have to find a way to win in the stores.”

Im­pulse pur­chas­es and self-gift­ing are a po­ten­tial area for big sales growth, and busi­ness isn’t go­ing to in­crease with­out them, Co­hen said. Shop­pers are three times more like­ly to buy on im­pulse at a phys­i­cal store than on­line, ac­cord­ing to Cir­cana re­search.

The Na­tion­al Re­tail Fed­er­a­tion pre­dict­ed that shop­pers would in­crease their spend­ing in No­vem­ber and De­cem­ber by be­tween 2.5% and 3.5% over the same pe­ri­od a year ago. Dur­ing the 2023 hol­i­day shop­ping sea­son, spend­ing in­creased 3.9% over 2022.

So far this hol­i­day sea­son, on­line sales have beat­en ex­pec­ta­tions, ac­cord­ing to Adobe Dig­i­tal In­sights, a di­vi­sion of soft­ware com­pa­ny Adobe. U.S. con­sumers spent  $77.4 bil­lion on­line from Nov. 1 to Nov. 24, 9.6%  more than dur­ing the same pe­ri­od last year. Adobe pre­dict­ed an 8.4% in­crease for the full sea­son.

De­spite the ear­ly sales, bet­ter bar­gains are com­ing with Black Fri­day, ac­cord­ing to Adobe. An­a­lysts con­sid­er the five-day Black Fri­day week­end, which in­cludes Cy­ber Mon­day, a key barom­e­ter of shop­pers’ will­ing­ness to spend for the rest of the sea­son.

Vivek Pandya, the lead an­a­lyst at Adobe Dig­i­tal In­sights, said shop­pers are pay­ing more at­ten­tion to dis­counts than last year, and their fo­cus on bar­gain-hunt­ing will dri­ve what sells and when.

For ex­am­ple, Thanks­giv­ing Day is the best time to shop on­line to get the deep­est dis­count on sport­ing goods, toys, fur­ni­ture and ap­pli­ances, ac­cord­ing to Adobe’s analy­sis. But Black Fri­day is the best time to buy TVs on­line. Peo­ple shop­ping for tele­vi­sions ear­li­er in the sea­son found dis­counts that av­er­aged 10.8%, while wait­ing un­til this Fri­day is ex­pect­ed to yield 24% dis­counts, Adobe Dig­i­tal In­sights said.

Cy­ber Mon­day, how­ev­er, is ex­pect­ed to be the best time to buy cloth­ing and gad­gets like phones and com­put­ers on­line. Elec­tron­ics dis­counts peaked at 10.9% off the sug­gest­ed man­u­fac­tur­er’s price be­tween Nov. 1 and Nov. 24 but are ex­pect­ed to hit 30% off on Cy­ber Mon­day, Adobe said.

Across the board, Black Fri­day week­end dis­counts should peak at 30% on Cy­ber Mon­day and then go down to around 15%, ac­cord­ing to Adobe’s re­search. —NEW YORK (AP)

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Sto­ry by: ANNE D’IN­NO­CEN­ZIO | As­so­ci­at­ed Press