Shoppers throughout the U.S. took advantage of mega sales and discounts at all kinds of stores, as a record number opened on Thanksgiving day rather than on Black Friday.
Twelve national chain stores opened their doors on Thanksgiving day.
Macy's in New York, for instance,opened on Thanksgiving evening at 8 p.m, rather than waiting until Black Friday.
"Everything is just all good," said Macy's CEO Terry Lundrun, in a CNBC interview. About 15,000 people waited in line outside the Manhattan store before opening.
Some violence, however, marred what should have been a long weekend of consumerism.
In Las Vegas, a shopper was shot late on Thursday night as he attempted to take his television home, police told NBC News. Also, at least three people got into a brawl in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart in Rialto California, as some shoppers felt others were cutting in the line. Two people were taken into custody there, NBC News reported.
Also, one shopper in New Jersey was charged with aggravated assault after getting into an argument with a Wal-Mart employee over a television, NBC News reported.
The decision to open some stores on Thursday night hoped to limit "the kind of chaos that caused injuries and violence in the past when stores opened early Black Friday morning, including the trampling death of a Wal-Mart employee five years ago in New York," NBC News also reported.
"Wal-Mart workers were staging protests at some of the chain's stores around the country to draw attention to what they say are wages too low to live on," NBC News also reported.
Sales over Black Friday weekend are expected to come in at $36.7 billion, a rise of 1.7 percent from last year, according to the market research company IBISWorld.
