Americans have already spent a record $1.75 billion in online holiday shopping

Shoppers pile into a store on Black Friday.
(Image credit: TREVOR COLLENS/AFP/Getty Images)

Record low temperatures didn't freeze Americans out of holiday deals this Black Friday.

U.S. shoppers spent $1.75 billion online, up 28.6 percent from 2017, on Thanksgiving by 5 p.m, Reuters reports via Adobe Analytics. They also lined up at department stores, signaling a promising start to the holiday shopping season driven by a strong economy and rising wages.

San Francisco led the way with 2.3 million online transactions on Thursday, dwarfing the next highest order totals in New York and Dallas, Reuters says. Nationwide, Americans are expected to spend 4.3 to 4.8 percent more throughout the rest of November and December than 2017's holiday season, The National Retail Federation predicts.

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An estimated 116 million people are expected to shop online or in stores on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, per Vox. Many retailers offer deals in the days before Black Friday, but it remains one of the biggest shopping days of the year, both online and in brick-and-mortar shops. Some stores, like Target and Best Buy, are offering free shipping to compete with online retail giants like Amazon, since thousands of shoppers plan to shop online on Black Friday to avoid packed stores.

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.