Black Friday Sales Booming Despite Recession

It’s Monday and the mayhem that is the run up to Christmas has finally begun. You’re likely coming out of your turkey coma and realizing that you actually have to go to work today, having not left the house since Wednesday.

It seems the days where we’d drag ourselves out of bed at all hours on Friday morning are slowly disappearing. Despite the economic crisis tightening the purse strings of the consumer, Americans spent $534 million online during Black Friday.

Like we said, Black Friday is the day where you wake up really early and hit the one day sales that are a long time tradition for the day after Thanksgiving. Cyber Monday is a newer tradition that sees us all surf the web while we’re at work the Monday after Thanksgiving so we can put off actual work and buy things from our desks.

Aside from being an excellent form of procrastination on a Monday morning, shopping online is one sure way to avoid the hustle and bustle (read: hell) of bargain hunting in stores. It’s also a pretty good way to avoid impulse buying things you can’t afford just because they’re on sale. Online sales on Thursday and Black Friday combined saw an increase of 2 percent versus a year ago according to comScore chairman, Gian Fulgoni. ComScore also reports that online shoppers prefer to sleep in, with just 11 percent of shopping done between 4 a.m. and 8 a.m.

We’ll be interested to see the sales figures for Cyber Monday but until then, take a look at this hilarious video of Black Friday shoppers fighting over Xbox consoles.