U.S. Chase Black Friday shoppers Offers Best Buy,

At 2 pm yesterday, with a steady rain falling, Andrés Sánchez was huddled in a tent outside Best Buy Co. 's Union Square store in New York.

The student, 23 years old, had ignored his friends when he said he was "crazy" to line up early.

After having declined in the past two years, Sanchez wanted to buy a laptop when Richfield, Minnesota-based Best Buy doors opened at 5 am today. Among his specialties doorbuster, the world's leading retailer of electronics offers a Sony Vaio laptop with a built-in Blu-ray disc Karate Kid and bag $ 500, a 32 percent savings.

"I have the best Christmas," said Sanchez, who plans to spend $ 2,000 this season at himself and his family, or about four times as much as last year.

Similar scenes play across the U.S. as "Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year, had its earliest start yet. Buyers are taking advantage of offers and they face a slower recovery than expected economy.

Retailers, Black Friday - so named because when many stores are profitable - as a benchmark for the entire holiday season.

"I think it will be the biggest Black Friday we had," Toys "R" Us Inc. CEO Jerry Storch said in a telephone interview on 24 November. "Everyone has focused on lowering prices and these prices can not be repeated."

U.S. Retail started hanging and Black Friday specials on Thanksgiving morning. Stores operated by Hoffman Estates, Illinois-based Sears Holdings Corp. opened at 7 am

'Economy Better

Twenty minutes after the Sears store in Whitehall, New York was opened yesterday, about the same number of buyers and sellers were mixed in the electronics department.

Wild Bill Jr., a retired auto mechanic near Allentown had just bought a 58 inch Panasonic plasma TV Corp. HD for $ 1044, 55% discount on list price of $ 2299. His son Brian said he was planning a major purchase for the holidays, Apple Inc. IPAD for his girlfriend.

"It feels as if the economy is beginning to improve," said Bill Savage.

Toys "R" Us Inc., the world's largest retailer of toys, opened at 10 am on Thanksgiving Day with over 200 doorbusters and free safe Crayola delivered as gifts with purchases. The chain of Wayne, New Jersey, moved its opening time from midnight onwards because customers said they wanted to go shopping after the Thanksgiving dinner, according to Storch.

Consumer rebound

analyst forecasts for holiday sales ranging from a few changes to increases of up to 4.5 percent. The Retail Federation predicts an increase of 2.3 percent to 447.1 billion U.S. dollars after rising 0.4 percent last year and a fall of 3.9 percent in 2008.

These forecasts are in line with a rebound in U.S. consumer spending this year when the economy began adding jobs. Consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of the U.S. economy grew at a rate of 2.8 percent per year in the third quarter, the Commerce Department. That was the fastest since the last three months of 2006.

Same-store sales, a key indicator, and new closed areas are excluded, rose for 14 consecutive months through October. Same-store sales for November and December may advance as much as 3.5 percent, the biggest increase since 2006, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers.

"Many retailers are back in the black, even before Black Friday," said Adrianne Shapira, an analyst at Goldman Sachs in New York, on Television "InBusiness" show on 24 November. "Sales have been improving, even in early November, so that the momentum to continue into the weekend and during the holiday season."

Kohl's Corp. and Costco Wholesale Corp. is one of the highest-performing retailers, according to Shapira.

Black Friday was the biggest shopping day in 2009, with $ 18 billion in sales, according to MasterCard spending pulse, which is headquartered in Purchase, New York. That may increase this year from 31 percent of consumers plan to buy that day, up from 26 percent a year earlier, according to the group of shopping centers.