The good news for merchants is that more Americans this year turned out to bag Thanksgiving weekend deals than last year. The bad news, however, is that shoppers on average spent less on their purchases compared to a year ago.

For nervous sellers, it's about Cyber Monday today, or the online retail world's version of Black Friday, when millions of people take a few minutes at work to surf the web to score "doorbuster"-like deals from e-tailers.

About 195 million people shopped in stores and online between Thanksgiving and Sunday, up from 172 million a year ago for the same four-day period.

Despite scenes of filled parking lots throughout Black Friday, total sales for the day were just slightly improved over last year.

About 43.2 percent of gift buyers headed to discounters like Wal-mart and Target stores.

Electronics stores, clothing chains and grocery stores also attracted crowds.