Marie Ruiz used the glow of a cellphone screen to study a map of the Framingham Wal-Mart early yesterday morning, as she and hundreds of other shoppers waited for the store to open at 5 a.m.
"Toys are on one end, and clothes are on the other," Ruiz said. "So I've got my mother here."
When the doors finally opened, shoppers - who began lining up at 9:30 p.m. on Thursday - rushed in, scooping up flat-screen televisions, digital picture frames, and GPS units.
At big box stores, outlets, malls, and department stores across the country, stores threw open their doors well before dawn offering bargains and other events in an attempt to lure shoppers facing high gas prices, exorbitant heating oil bills, and a slumping housing market. In Greater Boston, crowds of deal-hungry holiday shoppers lined up extra early at big-box retailers and outlet stores to snag deeply discounted doorbusters, and later in the day trickled into malls and department stores.
Black Friday, the annual rite of retail named for the day when merchants traditionally turn a profit, kicked off a holiday shopping season that the National Retail Federation predicts will have the slowest growth in five years. The Washington, D.C.-based trade group forecasts holiday sales will rise just 4 percent this year, to $474.5 billion, falling below the 10-year average, the smallest increase in sales since 2002, when sales grew 1.3 percent. And based on a survey of its members, the Retailers Association of Massachusetts projected a 2.2 percent increase in sales in the Bay State from last year, to $11.4 billion.
While the holiday shopping season continues to play out in the coming weeks, some retail analysts said it was a promising start to the day that sets the tone for the entire shopping season. The crowds were about 7 percent up from last year, said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at NPD Group. "There were deeper discounts, and there were more of them. Last year, the average store had about 100 doorbusters; this year some had 250, or quadruple."
In parking lots and on chilly sidewalks across the state, similar scenes played out: Lots of shoppers were ready to snag deals.
Shoppers began lining up Thanksgiving night at the Framingham Wal-Mart, lured by doorbusters like a $128.88 Garmin GPS unit and a $49.84 Venturer digital picture frame. By the time the store opened at 5 a.m., several hundred shoppers snaked around the store.
Natick resident Ted McCaffrey was able to secure the television of his choice, despite the several dozen people in front of him in line. Although the store was selling a 42-inch Polaroid LCD HDTV for $798, he went for a 32-inch version for $448. "I caved in," McCaffrey said. "I didn't need the 42."
Across town, the Wrentham Village Premium Outlets opened at midnight for its second annual Midnight Madness sale. The wait to enter the outlet approached nearly an hour as traffic backed up for miles on local highways. Shivering shoppers waited hundreds deep for discounts at merchants like Timberland, which offered 15 percent off purchases.
Meanwhile, CambridgeSide Galleria, which typically sees a surge in traffic in the wee hours spurred by doorbuster specials at Best Buy, saw a stream of buyers throughout the day, with smaller stores opening earlier and offering more discounts, said mall spokesman Jennifer Rotigliano. Foot traffic for the day was reported up about 10 percent from last year.
Wilson Hui, 18, of Boston, was the among the first through the checkout at Best Buy CambridgeSide, one of about two dozen early birds to get a "doorbuster" Sony VAIO laptop because he'd gotten in line at 7:50 p.m. the night before. The original price, he estimated, was about $750. His total: $419.99.
"Charge it to the bank," he said, waving a Bank of America card.
Not every place was brimming with shoppers like Hui. The scene was calmer at Downtown Crossing, once a retail mecca for the city. A small crowd waited outside Macy's main entrance, when the store opened a few minutes before 7 a.m.
But shopping was relatively hassle-free, according to Linda Petty of London, who has flown in to shop on Black Friday since 1992.
Chelsea Given, 26, of Charlestown, said she rolled into Downtown Crossing at the leisurely hour of 8 a.m. About two hours later, she was perched on top of her bargains - a cookset, a cutlery set, an MP3 player, and an $80 Cuisinart pan that she got for $17 - waiting for a ride home. "It's really not as crowded as I thought. I've gotten all the things that I wanted," she said.
John Macht, founder of the Macht Group, a retail consultancy, said Downtown Crossing was not a good barometer of the local shopping scene, since it now has several vacant storefronts that include the popular Filene's Basement. "You can't draw any economic conclusions from that."
Case in point: Bedcy Previl, 20, of Salem, came straight to the CambridgeSide Galleria's Best Buy line from a bar at 1 a.m. to snag a 42-inch plasma screen TV. He didn't have his jacket because the clubs had been hot, so he stood outside until he couldn't take it anymore, drove back to Salem for some heavier clothing, and returned by 4:15 a.m.
"We'd been laughing at people in lines," said his brother, Rops Previl, 18.
"Now look at us," chimed in Bedcy, who eventually bought a 32-inch TV for $599 before taxes - because the 42-inch they wanted had already been snatched up.
Globe staff reporter Jenn Abelson and Globe correspondents Kytja Weir and Calvin Hennick contributed to this report. Carolyn Y. Johnson can be reached at cjohnson@globe.com.
