As expected, Black Friday 2012 was a success all across the country. Alhough most of Padua’s students were likely to be attacking mall sales, retail stores outside of malls were the real victors.

    Union protests threatened to interfere with Walmart’s success, but only 26 protests broke out nationwide, few of which involved actual Walmart employees. The protests were no match for the sale-crazed customers, who were not to be disrupted with their spending.

    Statistics showed that an estimated 89 million people were out shopping on Black Friday, which is 3 million more than last year’s statistic. There was also approximately 59 billion dollars in spending, which is 7 million more than what the previous Black Friday raked in.

    Technology was a big help to shoppers this year, for many used their “mobile devices” to assist them in shopping, finding stores’ hours, looking for sales, etc. This can be expected to become more and more common in future Black Fridays with global technology advance.

With the unexpected success of this past season, especially given the economy’s challenges, the anticipation is high for an even more successful Black Friday. Retail stores experienced a noticeable uptick in both spending and customer traffic. This surge can be attributed in part to the convenience of shopping aided by smart phones, and perhaps also to the implementation of innovative retail clienteling software.