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Preliminary sales data from
ShopperTrak RCT Corp. show shoppers spent $10.66 billion when they hit
the malls on the day after Thanksgiving — only 0.5 percent more than
last year.

At the same time, other research showed fresh signs of
much stronger online sales during the traditional start of the holiday
shopping season, which may mean more consumers shopped from home.

Still,
more than a year after the economy’s collapse began rattling shoppers,
industry observers said Friday’s shopping sprees offered a strong start
to the holiday season as large crowds of shoppers snatched up early
morning deals.

“I know what they want, but I’ve been looking for
a deal to make sure I get a good price,” Jude Leeper, 49, of Hanover,
Pa., said as she shopped for gifts for family members Friday at a
Maryland mall. “I’m going to buy that gift that I know is going to get
used, not stuffed in a closet.”

The traditional shopping spree –
dubbed Black Friday because it often was the day when a surge of
shoppers helped stores break into profitability for the full year — has
marked the kickoff of holiday shopping for many consumers. But its
importance has faded in recent years as merchants started hawking the
deep sales and expanded hours usually reserved for that day well in
advance.

Still, the day is often used as an important barometer
of people’s willingness to spend during the holidays — vital weeks for
merchants nationwide.

This year, many of the in-store deals were
also available online, causing some Web sites to overload as
pajama-clad shoppers tried to get deals without waiting in long lines
in the cold.

Web marketing analyst Coremetrics said its data
showed the average amount online shoppers spent on Black Friday rose 35
percent as shoppers spent roughly $170.19 per order — up from $126.04
last year.

The San Mateo, Calif. company also said Web shoppers also bought more items with each purchase.

Shop-by-television
sales were also strong at the TV shopping network QVC, which said its
Black Friday sales totaled $32 million — up almost 60 percent from last
year, thanks to its first-ever push to promote its post-Thanksgiving
deals.

Executives at J.C. Penney Co. said Saturday that their day
after Thanksgiving business in stores was “strong” nationwide as
shoppers snatched up doorbusters.

However, officials at the
department store chain, which did not provide specific data about this
year’s business compared with last year, also cautioned that one
weekend’s performance wasn’t enough to predict how the rest of the
holiday season would fare.

Saturday’s in-store figures were
compiled by ShopperTrak RCT Corp., a Chicago research firm that tracks
sales at more than 50,000 stores.