Business is still booming for many online retailers as initial Black Friday sales reports show that more and more people are choosing to use their mobile devices to shop.
American software company Adobe, which monitors the sales of around 4,500 websites in the country, said that around $4.45 billion are expected to be spent by online shoppers by the end of Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday.
Adobe has predicted that around $1.73 billion will be spent on Thanksgiving Day, which is a year-over-year (YoY) increase of 25 percent, while around $2.72 billion will be spent on Black Friday, which is a 14 percent improvement from spending figures in recorded in 2014.
Meanwhile, retail analytics provider Shoppertrack said retailers made as much as $3.2 billion in sales on Thanksgiving and around $12.29 billion during the period between Thursday and Friday.
Adobe said the average discount price most retailers offered was 24 percent. The total sales were dominated by purchases of Pie Face Game, Crayola Super Art Coloring Kit and Star Wars-related toys.
Sales of tech items, such as Sony PlayStation 4 and Xbox One game consoles, Samsung 4K televisions, Beats by Dr. Dre headphones and Apple iPad Air 2, also added to the total number of purchases.
While Cyber Monday is still considered a largest shopping day in the United States, Black Friday follows close behind.
The decision of retail stores to include Thursday for their Black Friday sales period has helped popularized the concept of Thanksgiving Day shopping.
The National Retail Federation (NRF) projects that around 22.3 percent of shoppers will make their purchases on Thanksgiving, which is an improvement of last year's figures of only 18.3 percent.
Compared to last year's figure of 134 million shoppers during the holiday weekend, the NRF said close to 136 million people are set to make purchases during the same period this year.
Some of the largest retailers in the country, including Target, Best Buy and Wal-Mart, planned to open their stores on Thanksgiving at 5 p.m. and 6 p.m.
HomeGoods, Marshalls, Staples, T.J. Maxx and other retailers, however, chose to start their Black Friday sales based on the traditional times.
