This past weekend was the beginning of the holiday shopping season for most consumers across the nation, with Black Friday deals drawing shoppers out in search of limited-time deals.

Over the years, Black Friday has gained a sort of connotation for being a reckless shopping experience, often ending in injuries and confrontations due to the extreme shopping craze for low deals. Pushing and shoving, fights and stampedes of shoppers have become an annual news story for the day after Thanksgiving, but this year was different.

After watching many sources of news both on TV and online this past weekend, there was a void of the usual Black Friday shopping gone awry. This year it seems as if stores and malls may have finally figured out a method to the madness and found a structured way to bring shoppers in and out without incidences.

The possible cause of this has turned out to be the extension of days in which deals are offered, along with rollback prices on the days and weeks leading up to Black Friday. Some stores like Target began offering lower prices as early as Nov. 25 that lasted all the way through Black Friday.

Other retailers like Kohl’s and Macy’s began their deals at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving evening. This strategy, paired with many stores offering online deals from Black Friday through Cyber Monday, has spread out the massive shopping surge that was once just on Black Friday and thinned the shopping panic across a week or so. It seems to have reduced stress and created a better shopping experience all around.  

With this sort of format, more reluctant Black Friday shopping participants may start to change their minds as they see that the atmosphere is no longer one that is off-putting, but rather a great way to save.