The National Federation of Retailers has recently predicted

The national retailer's Federation recently predicted that some 97 million people would shop in "Black Friday" via the Internet or the physical stores, while shoppers were expected to reach 140 million from Thanksgiving to 4 days in Sunday. The Federation estimates that retail sales will rise 3.9% per cent to $602.1 billion a year from the holiday shopping season, from Thanksgiving to Christmas and New Year's Day. This will be better than the growth rate of 3.5% per cent last year, but there is a big gap compared to the growth rate of 6%―7% before the international financial crisis.

US holiday retail sales grew by only 3.2% per cent, Chris Christopher, an analyst at the global perspective of the U.S. Economic advisory Agency. He said the U.S. and global economic growth remained weak this year and that the U.S. job market was improving slowly, and the government shutdown and the debt ceiling crisis of October this year made consumers nervous. Hotovi, an analyst at the US Financial analytics company Morningstar, predicts that the implementation of Obamacare will add to the cost of health insurance premiums for some people and that low-income people are still facing a range of pressures.

Benefiting from the popularity of mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones, online sales have grown rapidly and become a bright spot in the US retail industry. According to software company Adobe's statistics on about 400 million visitors to 2000 shopping sites, 2 days of online purchases by Americans amounted to $3 billion, with a "black Friday" net sales of 1.93 billion dollars a day, up 39% from last year.

After Thanksgiving in Thursday, the United States ushered in a "black Friday" shopping spree, the annual year-end discount season officially began. Unlike in previous years, more businesses are opening their doors this year on Thanksgiving Day. In "Black Friday", there is another "grey Thursday".