Bargain hunters flocked to US stores late Thursday and overnight Friday, searching for deals on big screen televisions, video games and toys while fretting about their own shaky economic well-being.

Some stores, looking to grab as big a piece as possible of what is expected to be a middling holiday shopping season pushed post-Thanksgiving openings into Thursday evening or opened at midnight for the first time in years, getting a jump start on “Black Friday,” the traditional beginning to the US holiday shopping season.

The National Retail Federation expects 152 million people to hit stores this weekend, up 10.1 per cent from last year. – Text by Reuters, photos by Agencies.