Buy buy buy. The ‘biggest shopping day of the year’, Black Friday, was really the main course for many Americans this Thanksgiving, with folks rushing out on the national holiday to visit their local big box stores and eat up deals– many amid growing controversy over labor practices that keep workers away from their families for the holiday. Even Macy’s, with its Thanksgiving Day Parade tradition and lavish celebration of Christmas, got into the shopping spirit and opened the brand’s famous flagship in New York City to a record number of consumers on Thanksgiving Day.

But by all accounts, though still quite lucrative of course, Black Friday was less frantic then in years past. A chilling Time magazine headline online reads, “Calm Black Friday: Only 1 Death, 15 Injuries Attributed to Big Shopping Day” (Only one death, hooray!) but goes on to attribute the statistic not to a rise in humanity and decency, but to less people having face-to-face interactions, as online shopping rose.  BlackFridayDeathCount.com reports 7 Dead, 89 Injured in Black Friday, ahem, festivities starting in 2006.

BusinessInsider compiled the following stats about Black Friday 2013:

• $12.3 billion was the overall brick-andmortar store sales for Thanksgiving and Black Friday 2013 – up 2.3% from 2012 (source: CNN Money)
• $1.964 billion was the overall online sales for Thanksgiving and Black Friday – up over 18.5% from 2012 (source: TechCrunch)
• The average 2013 Black Friday online order was $135.27 – that’s up 2.2% yearover-year (source: TechCrunch)
• Black Friday online mentions peaked at 11am CST (source: Forbes)
• Walmart dominated in Black Friday mentions, with 77.5% of the voice (source: Forbes)
• But… 4 to 1 those Walmart mentions were negative (with words like “fight” “fought” and “fighting”) (source: Forbes)
• Pinterest vs. Facebook:  Pinterest dominates in direct sales. Referrals from the site spent 77% more than those from Facebook: $92.51 – average Pinterest order $52.30 – average Facebook order (source: Forbes)
• Pinterest vs. Facebook: But… Facebook referrals converted sales at nearly 4x’s the rate of Pinterest (source: TechCrunch)
• Mobile traffic: Grew to 39.7% of all online traffic – that’s an increase of 34% over Black Friday 2012 (source: TechCrunch)
• Mobile sales: reached 21.8% of total online sales – that’s an increase of nearly 43% from last year (source: TechCrunch)
• 24.9% of all online traffic on Black Friday came from smartphones – that compares to tablets at 14.2% (source: TechCrunch)
• How do you pay? PayPal reported a 121% increase in global mobile payments compared to Black Friday 2012 (source: TechCrunch)

What was your Black Friday experience like? Did you sit it out or brave the bargain-hunting crowds?  — Casandra Armour 

Image credit: amarosy / 123RF Stock Photo