“Fewer shoppers hit the stores on Black Friday”

Shoppers are discovering there's an alternative to standing outside on Black Friday waiting for a department store to open. The National Retail Federation (NRF), which tracks customer visits to stores, reported that 5.1 million fewer people were out shopping on Black Friday than last year. That was a decline of about 7%. On Thanksgiving Day itself, when many of the largest retailers opened with doorbuster deals between 6 and 8 p.m., the retail group found that around 1.8 million fewer shoppers went out from last year. The NRF gets its numbers from a survey of about 4,600 Americans. Two things are certain: More people are shopping online, and the holiday deals (in stores and online) are less concentrated on the one four-day weekend than they used to be (meaning you can get the same deal or better later in the shopping season). As a result, stores are bracing for "a marathon not a sprint," said president and CEO of the retail federation. Analysts say it is tough to predict whether consumers are spending less than they expected because they're concerned about the economy or because they believe better deals are to come. Americans spent 14% more online on Thanksgiving than last year while online shopping on Black Friday was up nearly 10%. The National Retail Federation warned that sales numbers on Cyber Monday may also slump as retailers spread out their sales throughout the month.

In Other News It looks like a throwback to the Apollo era, but NASA's new spaceship is roomier and designed to go far beyond the moon -- to an asteroid and eventually Mars. Orion is scheduled to lift off on its first test flight at 7:05 a.m. ET Thursday from Space Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The launch window will be open for two hours and 39 minutes. Orion will climb to an altitude of 3,600 miles (15 times higher than the International Space Station) and orbit Earth twice during the four and a half hour test run, NASA says. The spaceship will splash down in the Pacific Ocean about 600 miles off the coast of Baja California. Two U.S. Navy ships, the USS Anchorage and the USNS Salvor, will help NASA recover the capsule. This first flight won't carry any astronauts, but it will move NASA closer to getting back in the crewed spaceflight business. The U.S. has had to pay Russia's space agency to launch astronauts to the space station since the space shuttle program ended in 2011. Cyber Monday is no longer a one-day affair. Target is drawing customers into "Cyber Week." Amazon is offering a slew of deals under the banner "Cyber Monday Deals Week." (A week that lasts eight days.) Best Buy is dropping the time frame all together and offering "Cyber Savings." The mega online retailer Amazon launches its official Cyber Monday event on Sunday, when it promises to offer a new deal every 10 minutes. It is prominently advertising a 50% discount on some LeapFrog learning toys, a 40-inch HD Sony TV for under $300 and $50 off the Nest Learning Thermostat. It is also having a fire sale on its unlocked Fire smartphone, which has been a major disappointment for the company. Amazon said Monday proper tends to be its largest mobile shopping day of the year.