The tracking numbers for Black Friday show about a 0.5% sales increase over last year. Not sure how this bodes for sales over the rest of the holiday season, since this sales increase is less than some analysts expected. One thing to keep in mind is that last year's Black Friday sales were about a 2% increase from the year before, but the rest of the holiday season was a disaster.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...s_Most_Popular

The WSJ article indicates that consumers were buying less expensive items, and there was a big move towards online shopping.

It was interesting reading the Best Buy rep's take on things. He noted a big increase in foot traffic over last year. My impression from walking through a Best Buy store at 9pm on Friday night was that a lot of the big ticket items were still in stock, while most of the less expensive doorbuster deals were long gone. Most of the TVs in the BB ad were still in the store when I checked.

I think that while the TV deals were pretty good at most retailers, the TV discounting has been ongoing all year long. Unlike years past, it seems that the discounts covered a much larger range of models, not just a few ridiculously discounted loss leaders.