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"In a bid to capture the first rush of holiday shoppers, Amazon has opened an online store for Black Friday offers 22 days before the national shopping event is scheduled to take place.\nMany online retailers won't post their offers until Cyber Monday, which takes place the Monday following Thanksgiving. But many will go ahead and post their offers on Black Friday to compete with brick-and-mortar retailers, several of whom \u2014 including Target, Macy's and Kohl's \u2014 opened their stores to shoppers at midnight on Black Friday last year in an effort to beat out the competition.\nRetailers are discounting earlier to meet consumer demand. According to recent Google research, shoppers plan to spend more money ($900 vs. an average of $854 last season) and start shopping earlier this year than in years past. Online retailers should benefit especially: According to eMarketer\u2019s estimates, Americans will spend $54.5 billion online this holiday, excluding travel \u2014 an increase of 16.8 percent from 2011. These sales will make up nearly a quarter of all U.S. retail ecommerce sales for the year.\nAmazon opened its Black Friday store on Nov. 1 last year as well. The retailer plans to offer a steeper round of discounts during \"Black Friday Deals Week\" beginning 19 days from now.\nThe Black Friday store features a rotating Deal of the Day, the first of which is a series of discounts on Joss Whedon DVDs and Blu-rays, including the complete collection of Firefly. There's also a carousel of \"Lightning Deals\" some of which, like an 8.5-oz container of \"green superfood,\" don't strike us as all that gift-worthy.\nAmazon promises that between now and Black Friday, the following items will be discounted:\nPanasonic VIERA ST50 Plasma TVs and E50 LED TVsSamsung Series 9 Premium Ultrabook (silver)Nikon Camera with 18x ZoomXbox 360 250GB with KinectJumpSport Elite 14-Foot Trampoline with EnclosureUp to 40% on select Alex ToysStreet Surfing Amped Pro ScootersBuy three or more select Hasbro Games, get the lowest price game freeUp to 60% off children\u2019s books, including Disney Bedtime FavoritesUp to 50% off select winter clothing, including outerwear and cold weather accessoriesStuhrling Men\u2019s Symphony Aristocrat Executive Automatic Skeleton WatchPeugeot Women\u2019s Diamond Accented WatchSelect Bosch tools and accessoriesUp to 60% off popular TV series, including Seasons One and Two of The Walking DeadCasio 76-Key Premium Keyboard Package\nIn addition to the Black Friday store, Amazon also released this morning a cloud-based photo storage app for Android.\nImage courtesy of iStockphoto, kyoshino"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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