HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — Shoppers were out in full force getting in on all the Black Friday deals as millions of people are expected to shop throughout the holiday weekend.
"This is our family tradition," said Sherri Iturriaga. "I've been doing it 46 years."
Iturriaga and her family take their shopping seriously. Their Black Friday wake-up time is 4:00 am.
"We always go to Kohl's first and hit up the sales there, and then we come here, and then we're usually out until about 7:00 o'clock at night," said Iturriaga.
With matching shirts and bags in hand, their family joined the many more at Brandon Mall on Friday.
"I have a trunk-full from Kohl's," said Alysa Purkey. "Lots of stuff for the house, lots of clothes, some shoes."
According to the National Retail Federation, an estimated 182 million consumers are planning to shop both in-store and online from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday this year. Their experts say that's 15.7 million more people than last year.
Though some shoppers will tell you, the crowds seem manageable.
"My memory tells me everything used to be insane, and this doesn't seem too bad right now," said Andrew Robin.
Some families came with a plan for the big shopping day, while others went with the flow.
"We usually spend a good portion of our Thanksgiving shopping online and looking for sales, and then we kind of map out our game plan for the next day," said Purkey.
"Honestly, most of the things that we came, we just came and looked on a whim, see what the sales are when we get here," said Anthony Robin.
The National Retail Federation points out that even with early shopping, the five-day shopping spree that starts Thanksgiving Day and goes through Monday will represent some of the busiest shopping days of the year.
And if people don't find the deals they're looking for, another big sale of the season is right around the corner.
"We'll still do Cyber Monday for whatever we missed or whatever we still need," said Purkey.
