Both retailers reported robust Thanksgiving sales as shoppers stormed their stores in search of discounts on items such as TVs, toys, video games and cameras.
Walmart had more than 22 million shoppers in on Thanksgiving Day -- and about 10 million register transactions from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. alone, says U.S. CEO Bill Simon.
"We're a service industry like hotels or airlines and our job is to try to anticipate what the customer wants to do," Simon says. If the Thanksgiving Day traffic is any indication, customers "clearly want to shop on Thursday evening and we'll provide that for them," he says.
At Target, crowds lined up hours before the 8 p.m. opening and traffic remained steady for several hours after it first let customers through its doors, the retailer says.
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Bryan Everett, senior vice president of stores, said that strong marketing efforts -- such as Target's store-specific map listing the location of the doorbuster sales -- helped to lure in holiday shoppers.
"We had a lot of guests who appreciated that," he says. "It took a little of the confusion out of the equation."
Elizabeth Bradley of Wilmington, Del., said Target made Thanksgiving Day shopping easy.
"It was organized," she says. "You got in and you got out quick. And they had plenty of stock."
Both retail chains had brisk online sales as well.
Target reported two times more online orders than during last year's early morning Thanksgiving deals. Toys and electronics were the most popular items, with products such as the iPad Air, large-screen TVs, Nintendo 3DS XL and Zoomer the Robot Dog selling well.
Walmart.com said it processed nearly 400 million page views on Thanksgiving Day. That figure includes customers who used mobile devices and tablets! . "There was incredible traffic to walmart.com," Simon says.
Hand-held video games and SLR digital cameras were among its most popular online sellers.
Walmart.com briefly had some technical issues, but is back up and running, says Simon. "We apologize to anyone who was frustrated," he says. "They can go back in now and they won't have any problems."
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At both Target and Walmart stores, there was a strong turnout of families out shopping after their Thanksgiving meals.
"A couple people had custom T-shirts that said 'Family Black Friday Shopping 2013,'" Everett says.
Contributing: Bill McMichael of The (Wilmington) News Journal
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images 
Reed Saxon/AP SEATTLE -- Leaders in the International Association of Machinists publicly differed Friday on whether to bring Boeing's (BA) latest contract offer to a vote, exposing tensions within the union over how to handle the high-stakes negotiations. National union spokesman Frank Larkin said Friday that officials were exploring the idea after hundreds of members demanded an opportunity to vote on the contract to secure work on the 777X airplane. Larkin said members have always had the final say and that they have every right to vote on the terms of the offer. But local union officials said Friday they don't see any point in bringing it to a vote because it's too similar to a contract the union rejected a month ago. "So, until Boeing changes its conditions, we don't have an offer to vote on," said District 751 President Tom Wroblewski in a statement. A latest round of contract talks collapsed Thursday after local officials with the Machinists said they couldn't recommend Boeing's latest proposal to members. Local Machinists spokesman Bryan Corliss says Boeing has withdrawn the contract offer. Boeing spokesman Doug Alder, however, said the offer was rejected by the union, not withdrawn. He declined further comment Friday. Local union officials have seemed to disagree with their national leaders in recent weeks on how to handle Boeing's offers. That division was clear last month, when local union members voted to reject a contract negotiated by IAM leadership. Boeing and the Machinists have been exploring a deal that would secure the production of the new 777X airplane in the Puget Sound and the thousands of jobs that come with it. This week, Boeing made some changes to its original contract offer, backing away from a proposal that would slow the rate at which employees rise up the pay scale and adding an additional $5,000 in bonus pay. The biggest sticking point appears to be the company's insistence that workers move from a traditional defined-benefit pension to a defined-contribution savings plan. The local machinists said the company's latest proposal was too high of a price to pay to secure the 777X. "I think you'll agree these were very minor changes, and not nearly enough to offset the things Boeing was trying to take away from you, and for the Machinists who will join us in the future," Wroblewski wrote in a message to members Friday morning. Looming over the talks is the prospect that the company could build the airplane elsewhere. Boeing said it has received proposals from 22 states eager for the 777X jobs, with some proposing multiple sites. The company said 54 sites are now being evaluated. In its own bid to win the 777X jobs, Washington state recently approved tax breaks for Boeing valued at $9 billion over the coming years, along with legislation to improve aerospace training programs and the permitting process. Chicago-based Boeing began offering the 777X in May, but it's still finalizing plans for the plane and aiming to deliver the first aircraft by the end of the decade. Boeing has said it is expected to carry as many as 400 passengers and be more fuel efficient than the current 777. At the Dubai Airshow last month, Boeing received orders for 225 such planes from three airlines.
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Ross D. Franklin/AP Private sector job creation surged in November, with ADP reporting 215,000 new jobs in a number that could put some heat on the Federal Reserve to begin reducing its monthly stimulus. Economists expected ADP to report the private sector created 173,000 new jobs in November. "This feels pretty good," Mark Zandi, an economist with Moody's Analytics, which assists ADP in putting together the monthly report, said on CNBC. "I'm surprised at how well the job market held up in the face of what happened in Washington." Economists had expected the government shutdown in early October to put pressure on the job market, but that has not shown up in any of the data released since then. In fact, ADP (ADP) sharply revised its October number up to 184,000 from an initially reported 130,000. Services again led job creation with 176,000 new positions, though goods-producing added a healthy 40,000 in November, up from 29,000 in the previous month. Construction and manufacturing were good for another 18,000 jobs each. For manufacturing, it was the best month in nearly two years. As always, the numbers will be read through the prism of Fed policy. If the private payrolls count is an accurate barometer for the nonfarm payrolls reading the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases Friday, it could up the pressure for the U.S. central bank's Open markets Committee to ease off on the $85 billion in monthly bond purchases its carries out through its quantitative easing program. "The market is trying to work out whether good news is bad but clearly this report argues in favor of a December tapering at the FOMC," Andrew Wilkinson, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak, said in a note.
