Black Friday promotions

Promotions stoke sales of electronics, jewelry, clothing, toys. As retailers rushed to put the final touches on their stores before pre-dawn openings on Black Friday, consumers left their houses early to stand in line and be the first to welcome in the official start of the holiday shopping season.

"Retailers knew they had to offer promotions enticing enough to get shoppers out of bed on a chilly day, and they delivered," said NRF CEO Tracy Mullin.
In addition to shopping in malls and stand-alone retail stores, NRF is also expecting consumers to flood retailers' websites today. According to Shop.org, a division of NRF, 72.2% of online retailers are planning a special promotion for Cyber Monday, up from 42.7% just two years ago. More than 400 special offers will be featured on CyberMonday.com, a one-stop shop for consumers looking for the best Cyber Monday deals.

According to ShopperTrak, which tracks sales at more than 50,000 retail outlets, total sales rose 8.3% to about 10.3 billion on Friday, compared with 9.5 billion on the same day a year ago.

NRF estimates that holiday sales will rise 4% this year to 474.5 billion. NRF's holiday sales forecast is based on an economic model using indicators like housing data, unemployment and previous monthly retail sales reports and includes retail industry sales from November and December.

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