Instead, masked shoppers quietly lined up Friday morning in front of big retailers across the country, turning up in smaller numbers as early online deals and concern about the Cove in 19 spike dulled enthusiasm for trips to the mall.

Buffalo, New York resident Aaron Browning is enjoying the change.

You know I'm liking it more this year because of the crowds.

You don't have to battle the crowds.

Retailers transformed the traditionally busy shopping day that comes the day after Thanksgiving, employing new measures amid the pandemic, including temperature checks, curbside pickup and in store traffic.

Cops.

That's his retailers from target to Coles and Walmart rolled out online winter holiday promotions in October to capture holiday related spending as early as possible.

Blake Davillier, vice president of stores for Old Navy on the East Coast, has noticed the difference, so customers are choosing to shop online.

They're choosing to shop via our app.

They're choosing to shop in stores well.

We also started our promo earlier this year to accommodate customers and to try and spread out some of that customer traffic over a wider period of time.

Adobe Analytics expects Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

2022 still become the two largest online sales days in history, with Black Friday online sales between 8.9 and $10.6 billion.

Despite economic challenges nationwide, the National Retail Federation forecasts US holiday retail sales will increase between three and 6% over 2019.

That compares with an average annual increase of 2.5% over the past five years.

Taylor Schreiner, director of Adobe Digital Insights, says that's a big deal, and just to put that in perspective, we're forecasting $189 billion for the entire holiday season, which represents about two years worth of growth happening just this holiday.