Healthy Black Friday Partly Due to Wii

Black Friday was better than anticipated in such a dark and gloomy economy. Retail sales were up 3 percent from Black Friday in 2007 with estimates of total sales around $10.6 billion. Web shopping was up 11 percent from last year according to PriceGrabber.com.

The Wii was the most searched for web item this shopping season and according to eBay, shoppers bought up 3,171 of the Nintendo based gaming console on Friday with an average selling price of $349. The Wii fit also was a highly sought after item with 1,059 of the units being sold at an average price of $140.

"Consumers are responding to aggressive promotions and price drops on popular electronics," Ron LaPierre, president of PriceGrabber, said in a statement.

"While this is an encouraging start for retailers, there's no guarantee these deep discounts will continue after Black Friday weekend, which could slow spending," Bill Martin, co-founder of ShopperTrak, said in a statement. "Additionally, consumers have just 27 days to shop this year as opposed to 32 in 2007, which may catch some procrastinating consumers off guard, leading to lower sales levels."