Black Friday Post-Mortem: People Are Shopping Again

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The takeaway from this weekend's retail orgy: Holiday cheer has returned to the checkout counters of America. The National Retail Federation reports that 8.7% more people visited a store or website this year than last year, and the average shopper spent 6.4% more, or $365.34. Granted, these statistics aren't complete—a more thorough report will come out Thursday—and granted, they don't represent anything close to a crazy miracle rebound, but still, numbers are up, and up is good.

Not good, however: Trampling. At a Buffalo Target on Friday morning, one man wound up trapped between crazed shoppers and a metal door frame. (Head to Gawker for the harrowing video.) Elsewhere, Black Friday mayhem included a shoplifter who stabbed a US Marine reservist in a Georgia Best Buy, a mom who left her kids in a locked car outside a Connecticut Walmart, a guy who showed up in a Florida Walmart armed to the teeth, and a woman who was so incensed that no one would let her cut in line at a Wisconsin Toys 'R' Us that she threatened to come back with her gun.

It sounds like New Yorkers were much better behaved. But while the rest of the country has to contend with gun-toting lunatics, Macy's Herald Square shoppers had to deal with hipsters. 21-year-old East Village hair stylist Sophia Sklansky and her boyfriend waited all night to shop at Macy's ironically. "We just thought, 'How funny would it be to go to a Black Friday sale?'" she told DNAinfo.
· Black Friday Starts to Brighten [WSJ]
· What a collection of store losers! [NYP]
· Black Friday Doorbuster Sales Draw Crowds [DNAinfo]