Black Friday sales rose 6.6 percent: source

(Reuters) - Sales rose an estimated 6.6 percent to a record $11.4 billion on Black Friday, typically the busiest shopping day of the year for Americans, while the traffic at stores rose 5.1 percent, according to ShopperTrak.

The day's sales growth was the strongest percentage gain since 2007, when sales rose 8.3 percent on the day after Thanksgiving, said Ed Marcheselli, chief marketing officer at ShopperTrak, which monitors retail traffic.

As usual on Black Friday, retailers used deep discounts on popular items such as toys and televisions to lure shoppers as the holiday shopping season began. Some started sales as early as Thanksgiving night to get a jump on their rivals.

While the Black Friday rise was a "positive indicator for the holiday season," Marcheselli cautioned it is just one day.

ShopperTrak has estimated that sales for all of November and December will rise about 3 to 3.3 percent.

The National Retail Federation, an industry trade group, expects 152 million people to hit stores this weekend, up 10.1 percent from last year. But it expects sales for the full November-December holiday season to rise just 2.8 percent, well below the rise of 5.2 percent in 2010.