Shoppers hit the stores in the thousands on Black Friday.

The numbers are in, and it looks good.  A combination of early ad leaks, higher profile advertisements, and great sales has driven Thanksgiving shopping numbers to incredible heights.  Thanksgiving sales have greatly improved over last year, which suggests that the economy is on the rebound.  The renewed focus on a weekend of shopping, from Thanksgiving early sales, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday has turned one day of sales craziness into a tiered, multi-day extravaganza of sales and shopping.

“I think the only way to describe the Thanksgiving openings is to call it a huge win,” said Matthew Shay, president and chief executive of the National Retail Federation.  According to him, shopping “has really become an extension of the day’s festivities.  There were more people shopping every single day of the weekend.  Black Friday is a little bit different than historically, but it certainly is not dead.”

According to the NRF, 35 million people went shopping on Thanksgiving Thursday.  On Black Friday, 89 million people hit the shopping centers and websites.  Both those numbers are significantly than last year.  Overall holiday shopping season sales are expected to be about $586.1 billion dollars.  The average American shopper is expected to drop $749.51 this holiday.

Tags: biggest shopping day of the year, matthew shay, national retail federation, black friday shopping up, black friday shopping, thanksgiving shopping, 89 million people went shopping on black friday, 35 million people went shopping on thanksgiving night, cyber monday, thanksgiving weekend, holiday shopping sales expected to be 6.1 billion, thanksgiving shopping, holidays, shopping, the economy

I’ve never had a problem eating food from a gas station.  Just two weeks ago, I ate a couple of hot dogs purchased from a gas station.  They were delicious.  That’s not the first time I’ve eaten gas station food, and I doubt it will be the last.  There’s nothing like a fun food novelty. […]

Commissioner Roger Goodell gathered 32 NFL owners for one big question.  One of the league’s most wanderlust-stricken franchises is looking to move again.  The Oakland-Los Angeles-Oakland Raiders, tired of gutting it out in a run-down stadium, were once again looking for greener pastures.  Only the Miami Dolphins refused to cooperate.  With a vote of 31-1, […]

In 2006, an injury to Dallas Cowboys starting quarterback Drew Bledsoe opened the door for an undrafted free agent by the name of Tony Romo to take the helm of America’s Team and lead the Dallas Cowboys to an early playoff exit.  Bledsoe went from starter to afterthought in a season.  Now, the circle continues […]

For 89 years, Oscars has never had a major mistake.  The last few Oscars might have had a few flubs, but at least they never got the most important category of the night wrong.  Well, that’s now changed, all thanks to OG Bonnie and Clyde legends Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.  When Faye Dunaway called […]

Tom Brady has been wildly successful, if controversial.  He’s the first quarterback ever to win five Super Bowls and only the second player to do so after Charles Haley.  Unlike Haley, Brady won all his Super Bowls with the same team, the New England Patriots.  The only thing that seems to be able to stop […]

Ben Affleck, no matter what you might think of him, is a talented actor and director.  He’s got the goods, but he’s smart enough to know when he’s in over his head.  All along, since he took on the mantle of Batman, he’s had his eyes on writing, directing, and starring as the Caped Crusader. […]

In May, students for the for-profit American College of Education were running into some problems.  Their access to email accounts and course information was locked down by Google, who had disabled their accounts.  The reason why?  A fired IT worker for the American College of Education locked the school out of their Google cloud account. […]