Americans kick off 2-day holiday shopping marathon

Shoppers enter and leave the Best Buy electronics store on the Thanksgiving Day holiday in Westbury, New York, November 28, 2013. [Photo/Agencies]

But that sentiment didn't stop others from taking advantage of the earlier openings and sales. "We like to shop this time of night ... We're having a ball," said Rosanne Scrom as she left the Target store in Clifton Park, N.Y., at 5 pm Friday.

The reception to the double-day holiday shopping start has led some retail experts to question how much further Black Friday will creep into Thanksgiving. Some now even refer to the holiday as Black Thanksgiving or Gray Thursday. "Black Friday is now Gray Friday," said Craig Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners, a retail consultancy.

It's unclear whether or not the early openings will lead shoppers to spend more over the two days or simply spread sales between the two days. Last year, sales on Thanksgiving were $810 million last year, an increase of 55 percent from the previous year as more stores opened on the holiday, according to Chicago research firm ShopperTrak. But sales dropped 1.8 percent to $11.2 billion on Black Friday, though it still was the biggest shopping day last year.

Sales figures for this year's Thanksgiving and Black Friday will trickle out in the next couple days, but some big chains already are proclaiming early Friday morning that the start to the holiday shopping season had gotten off to a successful start.

Most Wal-Mart stores are open 24 hours, but the world's largest retailer started its holiday shopping sales events at 6 pm on Thanksgiving, two hours earlier than last year. Wal-Mart said that customers bought 2.8 million towels, two million TVs, 1.4 million tablets, 300,000 bicycles and 1.9 million dolls.

Rival Target, which opened at an hour earlier this year at 8 pm on Thanksgiving, also said that traffic starting in the early morning hours of Thanksgiving on Target.com and at its stores later in the day was "strong."

Terry Lundgren, Macy's CEO, said "so far, so good" referring to the overall holiday shopping season. The 15,000 people who showed up for the opening of the flagship store was the most ever, up from 11,000 last year.

"It's unbelievable," he said. "Clearly people are in the shopping mood."