Redefining Black Friday: Early sales, rising prices and the surge of Cyber Monday

When some think of Black Friday, they immediately think of chaos: long lines, pushing through huge crowds and camping out all night to take advantage of the sales. Maybe even wrestling a stranger for a retail item.

However, as many retail sales have expanded their sales to start earlier, this may no longer be the case.

Stores such as Target, Amazon and Best Buy began their sales weeks before Black Friday; Target's sales began as early as October.

Despite this, prices on items have increased due to inflation.

This year we, we see shoppers really trying to minimize the impact of inflation on their shopping budgets by really harnessing this time of year to try to find as much deals as possible," said Kristin McGrath, senior retail editor of RetailMeNot.

According to the National Retail Federation, Americans will spend an estimated $1 trillion . The spike in prices has been noticed by customers.

“I'm definitely noticing a lot of things that used to be cheaper pre-pandemic," said shopper LaLa Harris. "It’s a lot more expensive than it used to be.”

In addition, the rate of online shopping continues to grow.

"Cyber Monday is actually the most popular of the Thanksgiving shopping holidays. Sixty-six percent of shoppers are likely to buy something on Cyber Monday, 61% on Small Business Saturday, which I thought was interesting. That's actually ahead of Black Friday at 56%," said Ted Rossman, senior analyst from Bankrate.

The National Retail Federation estimates more than 180 million people will shop during the Black Friday holiday weekend. The sales are expected to continue throughout the month of December, but most of the biggest discounts will occur over the weekend.