It’s up by 3%. The economy must be a little better than we’ve heard if people are out spending anything:

The holiday shopping season got off to a surprisingly solid start, according to data released Saturday by a research firm. But the sales boost during the post-Thanksgiving shopathon came at the expense of profits as the nation’s retailers had to slash prices to attract the crowds in a season that is expected to be the weakest in decades.
Sales during the day after Thanksgiving rose 3 percent to $10.6 billion, according to preliminary figures released Saturday by ShopperTrak RCT Corp., a Chicago-based research firm that tracks sales at more than 50,000 retail outlets. Last year, shoppers spent about $10.3 billion on the day after Thanksgiving, dubbed Black Friday because it was historically the sales-packed day when retailers would become profitable for the year.
[…]
Across the country, sales in the South were up 3.4 percent from last year while they climbed 2.6 percent in the Northeast as shoppers began scouring store aisles at midnight hoping to snag the best selection on early morning specials, some as much as 70 percent off. Elsewhere, sales rose 3 percent in the Midwest and 2.7 percent in the West.

What the heck? They slash prices every year and year the prices weren’t that great I checked. Maybe if you wanted a TV and cheap PJs or saving some money on an iPod touch but other than that it was the same price cuts as last year ($500 laptops, digital cameras for under $100, etc.)
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