bestbuyIn the days to come we’ll find out precisely how many billions were spent over this critical shopping weekend, but for now, there’s some clear winners and losers.

Best Buy’s slogan this weekend is “Nobody does Black Friday like Best Buy.”

That particularly rang true Friday morning when its website crashed under the strain of holiday traffic. The site and mobile app went down for almost two hours, starting at around 7 a.m. PT. A spokesman told told Re/Code that a surge in traffic from mobile devices was to blame.

Reports from other retailers were more optimistic, with strong sales occurring on Thanksgiving day.

Walmart declined to release specific sales figures, but said its website broke records yesterday with more than 500 million page views. It said Thanksgiving delivered its second highest online sales day ever behind Cyber Monday last year, with mobile driving more than 70 percent of Walmart.com traffic yesterday.

After a feasting on turkey and mashed potatoes, people clearly put picked up their phones and tablets to shop.

postal conveyor beltTarget also reported optimistic, yet vague, results for Thanksgiving day.

The Minneapolis-based retailer said the number of online orders and sales increased more than 40 percent over last year, making it one of the company’s biggest online sales day ever. The most growth in traffic and sales came from mobile.

Many reports suggested that customers began shopping earlier this year, taking advantage of sales that began days or weeks ahead of schedule.

According to Adobe, which tracks e-commerce spending through its marketing software, reports that $1.33 billion was spent online yesterday, which is 25 percent more than in 2013. It said 29 percent of those sale came from mobile devices.

ChannelAdvisor also reported a strong uptick in spending, with its clients seeing Thanksgiving sales up 20.1 percent. Amazon was a particularly noteworthy marketplace, with same-store sales increasing 25.9 percent. On the other hand, eBay saw same-store sales fall 3 percent.

A few reports are suggesting that earlier sales are leading to fewer elbows and punches being thrown this Black Friday as smaller crowds turn out to fight over sale items, according to The AP. Some people will find this music to their ears as employees have begun to protest working long hours over holiday weekends, and others fail to see the value in owning more stuff.

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