US Black Friday retail bonanza in strong start
The day after Thanksgiving in America heralds the start of the holiday shopping season
Hordes of bargain-hunters have been stampeding shopping centres across the US as the nation's holiday shopping season began in earnest.
The day after Thanksgiving in the US is known as Black Friday because it is when many retailers move out of the red and into the black.
Some violence broke out as sharp-elbowed shoppers jostled to grab heavily discounted products.
Half of the entire US population is expected to hit the shops this weekend.
Some stores had crowds rushing in when they opened at midnight - several hours earlier than they usually do - on the busiest shopping day of the year.
Pepper-spray attackThe openings were mostly peaceful, but there was some disorder:
- A man is in a stable condition in hospital after being shot in the early hours as he left a Walmart with his family in San Leandro, California, when they resisted two armed robbers who demanded their purchases
- Police are looking for a woman who left 20 people with minor injuries when she used pepper spray as a crowded Los Angeles area Walmart opened on Thursday evening in what the authorities said appeared to be a case of "competitive shopping"
- A man was reportedly arrested for resisting arrest after a fight at the jewellery counter in the early hours at another Walmart in Kissimmee, Florida
- Police are looking for two suspects after gunfire erupted early on Friday at a shopping centre in Fayetteville, North Carolina; there were no reports of injuries
Bargain-hunters were lured by an array of so-called door-buster deals of up to 70% off on big-screen televisions, video games and toys.
Occupy Black FridayTarget, Best Buy and Macy's were among the stores that opened at midnight, while Gap and Toys R Us opened on Thanksgiving itself.
Occupy Wall Street protesters called for a boycott of Macy's
Protests are planned in a number of cities urging people to boycott national chains on Black Friday.
Several Occupy activists demonstrated outside New York's flagship Macy's, but they could not put off more than 9,000 people who had queued for the store's midnight opening.
Nelson Sepulveda, a New York building superintendent, was the first in line at a Manhattan Best Buy store having queued for 28 hours before it opened.
He wanted to get his hands on a 42-in LCD television for $200 (£130) and other items, the Reuters news agency reported.
For the past six years, a combination of increasingly early opening times and enticing deals have helped make the day after Thanksgiving the biggest shopping day in the US.
About 152 million people were expected to visit stores in search of bargains this weekend - up 10% from last year - according to the National Retail Federation (NRF).
Crowds thronged the Thanksgiving parade in New York
Consumer spending accounts for about 70% of US economic activity, so economists will be watching the retail bonanza closely.
Between 25-40% of annual US retail sales take place during November and December.
Analysts say a powerful start to the shopping season could cheer employment prospects in the retail sector, which supports about a quarter of all jobs in the US.
Retail hiring for the season has still not yet rebounded to its 2005 pre-recession peak of 642,000 workers, according to the NRF.
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