Black Friday shoppers start earlier

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - It's Black Friday, and this year, retailers are hoping shoppers make it a profitable day.

Last year's Black Friday raked in more than $11 billion. iPhone apps and expanding hours are being used to get shoppers to spend more money, but sometimes it interferes with tradition.

The Thompson Family has shopped during Black Friday for more than a decade and they don’t just do it to experience the deals.

“Just because it's fun, it's tradition for us, just all of us getting together is the fun of it. The deals really aren't the thing anymore, they used to be when we all had little kids it was the deals, but now its just the family getting together,” says one of the members.

However, some savvy shoppers say for them it's all about the deals.

”We went to Wal-Mart about 8 p.m. last Thursday night and we stood in line for about two hours and we bought 10 iPads,” says Jackie a member

This year Black Friday retailers used iPhone apps and earlier store hours to bump up sales. The goal is to have shoppers spend an additional $340 million, but some traditional shoppers wish retailers would keep Black Friday on Friday.

“It takes away from our family time. We got part of our family that's running out to get to the 8 o'clock in the evening deals and they're getting in line at 3 o'clock just kind of cuts off on the family time,” explains the Thompson Family.

Some shoppers embrace the Thanksgiving Day sales, just as much as Black Friday.

“We have our Thanksgiving dinner and then we sit down and we look at the ads and we map out where we're going to go and then we hit the roads and we get what we need to get,” says Christina a nurse who stayed up all night to shop.

Whether these shopaholics start bright and early Friday morning or on Thanksgiving Day, the experienced ones say make sure you have money, a lot of caffeine and a game plan.

“We started about 9 o'clock in Plainfield at Wal-Mart and Target, and then we had to go home and unload regroup. We took off to Edinburgh Outlet Mall from about midnight until 4, got a lot of good deals there and came back up here about 5 and started all over again,” say shopper Nicole Graham.

Stores like Old Navy changed their sale specials every few hours, to help shoppers keep up they used an iPhone app called Cheermagedden.