People visit a brick-and-mortar store built by Amazon.com Inc on Nov 23, 2016 in Beijing, aiming to embrace the market boom during "Black Friday". [Photo/VCG]

According to Xinhua News Agency, Black Friday is one of the biggest shopping days of the year, but it has expanded in recent years, retailing experts say. It has been a trend that people are increasingly spreading out their shopping throughout the whole holiday season instead of concentrating it on this single day.

Shoppers spent $1.15 billion online from midnight to 5 pm on Thanksgiving Day, said Xinhua, citing data released by Adobe, a retail data analyst.

"This holiday season, it's a near certainty that online shopping - not brick-and-mortar mall visits - will be the key driver of sales growth for the retail industry," tweeted Sarah Halzack, a national retail reporter for Washington Post.