Black Friday is beginning to start earlier and earlier each year, while shoppers weren’t afraid of pulling out their smartphones to snag some deals on Thanksgiving. Sales on Thanksgiving collected $1 billion via smartphones, while online sales overall totaled $3.7 billion, which is a 28 percent increase from a year ago, according to Adobe Analytics.

With these new numbers, Thursday became the fastest-growing day for e-commerce sales in history. In addition, it was also the first time in 2018 to witness $1 billion in sales, strictly from smartphones, according to the firm, which monitors transactions from 80 of the top 100 internet retailers. Adobe Analytics adds shoppers spent 8 percent more online on Thursday compared to a year ago.

As more and more shoppers begin to browse sites such as Amazon for deals during the holidays, the move is viewed by some as “stealing some of Black Friday’s thunder,” as shoppers would typically head to the mall instead to shop.

“Overall, Black Friday doesn’t have the sense of urgency as in the past and feels more like a busy regular weekend day in many of the stores,” Telsey Advisory Group analyst Dana Telsey said in a research note. Many promotions were available “for the past couple of weeks,” she added, making it less of a necessity for shoppers to hurry off to stores to score a deal.

Online spending is expected to reach more than $6.4 billion on Black Friday, which would either match or exceed Cyber Monday of 2017, Adobe reports. As of 10 a.m. ET Friday, $643 million had already been spent online.

Kohl’s noted it hit a record day for digital sales on Thanksgiving, with 80 percent of online traffic coming directly from mobile devices. Target and Walmart, too, said it encountered strong traffic online, with a large amount opting to buy online and pick up in store.  Shoppers nearly doubled their click-and-collect orders from Wednesday to Thursday this week, Adobe said.

“Retailers understand that shopping and buying on smartphones is now the norm for consumers, and as a result are delivering better experiences and optimization on mobile devices,” said Taylor Schreiner, director of Adobe Digital Insights.

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