• Chaotic scenes have been reported at retailers throughout the country on Thanksgiving evening as Black Friday sales have begun
• The rush for bargains has resulted in outbreaks of violence as shoppers clash over reduced price goods
• Police in Virginia have reporting a stabbing incident after two men got into a fight in the car park over a space
• Several clips have already appeared on YouTube of the carnage at various Walmart stores
• Some national retailers opened their doors as early as 6am on Thanksgiving Day
• Gray Thursday meant that shopping started ahead of the more traditional extravaganza of Black Friday
• Outlets such as Kmart, Best Buy and Toys-R-Us are predicting that they've done huge business
  
• But there is widespread criticism over the decision to open on the national holiday - with some saying that rampant commercialism has gone too far
  

By James Nye and David Mccormack

PUBLISHED: 10:32 EST, 28 November 2013 | UPDATED: 01:30 EST, 29 November 2013

There were chaotic scenes at major retailers throughout the country on Thanksgiving evening as some large stores opened their annual Black Friday sales to the public.

The rush for bargains is an annual occurrence during the sales and this year hasn’t disappointed so far with clips posted on YouTube of violent scenes at several Walmart stores, while other shoppers have taken to Twitter to share details of the fights that they’ve witnessed.

Police in Virginia have reporting a stabbing incident after two men got into a fight in the car park over a space. 

Black Friday kick off the holiday shopping season and is typically the busiest shopping day of the year.

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Almost as traditional as the sales is the footage of hordes of bargain crazed shoppers ready and willing to slug it out against their fellow countryman for discounted electrical goods.

In the most serious incident so far, a stabbing occurred at around 6:30PM on Thursday night at a Walmart store in Tazewell County, Virginia.

Sheriff Brian Hieatt told WVVA that the incident occurred in the parking lot. Two men, 61-year-old Ronnie Sharp of Russell County and 35-year-old Christopher Jackson of Jewell Ridge in Tazewell County, were arguing over a parking space.

This escalated into a threat with a firearm, and then Hieatt says Sharp used a knife to cut Jackson in the arm, slicing down to the bone.

Sharp is charged with malicious wounding and brandishing a firearm. Police seized a rifle from him.
He is Southwest Regional Jail in Tazewell and is out on $5000 bond.

Jackson, the victim, was treated at a local hospital before being taken to jail. He has been charged with disorderly conduct and assault and battery, both misdemeanors. He is also on $5000 bond.

Walmart spokesperson Brooke Buchanan has denied that such scenes accurately depict the Black Friday shopping experience at the retailer.

'We've got great feedback from customers and associates across the country,' she told The Huffington Post. 'A few tweets aren't representative of what's actually happening at 4,600 stores.'

The holiday shopping season kicked off much earlier this year, as at least a dozen national retail chains from Macy's to Gap to Target opened their stores on Thanksgiving Day.

The holiday openings came despite planned protests from workers' rights groups that are opposed to employees working on the holiday instead of spending the day with family.

The holiday openings are a break with tradition. The day after Thanksgiving, called Black Friday, for a decade had been considered the official start to the holiday buying season. It's also typically the biggest shopping day of the year.

But in the past few years, retailers have pushed opening times into Thanksgiving night. They've also pushed up discounting that used to be reserved for Black Friday into early November, which has led retail experts to question whether the Thanksgiving openings will steal some of Black Friday's thunder.

Overall, The National Retail Federation expects retail sales to be up 3.9 percent to $602.1 billion during the last two months of the year. That's higher than last year's 3.5 percent growth, but below the 6 percent pace seen before the recession.

Analysts expect sales to be generated at the expense of profits as retailers will likely have to do more discounting to get people into stores.

The holiday shopping bonanza began early this year as lines of customer flocked to K-Mart at 6am on Thanksgiving morning and more than a dozen retailers opened their doors to shoppers one day ahead of the famed Black Friday shopping day. 

But the steady creep of the Thanksgiving sales has some critics saying that the annual bargain frenzy has gone too far and more should be done to preserve the day as a traditional family occasion.

Rhode Island, Maine and Massachusetts have already banned stores from opening on Thanksgiving. But elsewhere opening hours are getting even earlier with Thanksgiving Day now dubbed 'Gray Thursday.'

K-Mart opened at 6am on Thursday and will remain open for 41 hours straight in 'the triple doorbuster' sale to appease bargain hunters.

This year's crowds at Kmart were a long way from the 'scandalous' midnight Friday openings of just two years ago. But there are still many shopping hours to go before the weekend is over. 

The National Retail Federation has estimated that 33 million people will spend money on Thanksgiving, either in stores or online, accounting for nearly a quarter of the whole weekend's total shoppers.

And with retailers opening their doors to what is being dubbed a 'Black Friday creep' some shoppers are becoming worried that commercial culture has intruded on the family celebration that is Thanksgiving.

Best Buy and Walmart are opening their doors at 6 p.m. on Thursday, while Macy's, Target, JCPenney, Kohl's and Sears will welcome shoppers to its brick and mortar stores at 8 p.m.

Kmart has defended its decision to open on Thanksgiving at 6 a.m. saying that it has been doing that for the past 22 years.

'We understand many associates want to spend time with their families during the holiday,' the company said.

'With this in mind Kmart stores do their very best to staff with seasonal associates and those who are needed to work holidays. All associates who work on Thanksgiving are compensated with holiday pay.'

Some of the nation's largest chains, including Toys 'R' Us and Target, have nudged their opening times into Thursday in a bid to make more money than ever over the Black Friday weekend.

'Retailers are now commercializing Thanksgiving, giving the opportunity to the consumer who doesn’t want to watch 12 hours of football,' said Marshal Cohen from consumer research firm NPD Group.

However, some national chains have decided to stay closed on the national holiday, keen to present a more traditional front.

Nordstrom wrote on its Facebook page, 'We won't be decking our halls' until Black Friday because 'we like the idea of celebrating one holiday at a time.'

Trader Joe's, Burlington Coat Factory, TJ Maxx, BJ's Wholesale Club, Costco, Home Depot, Dillards, and Marshall's are also choosing to stay closed this 'Gray Thursday.'

Across the country, a staggering 17 percent of consumers - or 41 million people - are expected to shop on Thanksgiving, according to a consumer holiday tracking survey by The International Council of Shopping Centers and Goldman Sachs.

And for retailers, it makes sense. Last year, stores which extended their hours saw sales soar by up to 22 per cent over the weekend, while those retailers that did not lost up to 8 per cent.

The National Retail Federation predicts 147 million Americans will shop over Thanksgiving weekend, and that there will be an increase of holiday sales of 4.1 per cent on last year.

Tents began gathering outside Best Buy stores on Tuesday as bargain hunters hoped to get their hands on gadgets when doors open on Friday.

Stores are enticing shoppers with discounts including $7 board games at Target, $19 sweaters at Gap and $299 Toshiba 50-inch LEDs at Sears - down from $849.

Aware that many customers plan to shop online, Target and Best Buy are also matching prices offered by online competitors such as Amazon.com, Bloomberg reported.

And in some stores, there will be kiosks and mobile checkouts to integrate online and in-store shopping, while Apple customers can simply scan their products and pay remotely.

Independent stores and entire malls nationwide are also opening early. In South Florida, for example, Dolphin Mall in Sweetwater and Sawgrass Mills in Sunrise each open at 9pm on Thursday for 24 hours.

With stores opening earlier, the retail industry has crossed the Black Friday barrier and it might creep further forward still, Kimberly Taylor, an associate professor from Florida International University, told the Miami Herald.

'It is becoming almost a whole season,' she said. 'Where is it going to end? Will it take away the whole Black Friday if it is the whole week or the whole season?'

There will also be early sales online as discounts are offered ahead of the Internet's equivalent of Black Friday - Cyber Monday.

The deals are expected to boost sales made on Thanksgiving last year, when online spending rose 18 per cent to $479 million. On Black Friday, sales soared 26 per cent to $816 million.

But not all employees are happy about the changes, with some workers signing petitions at change.org demanding stores including Target and Walmart stay closed on Thursday.

One petition started by a Target employee, Casey St Clair, was entitled 'Target: Take the High Road and Save Thanksgiving' and had gathered almost 400,000 supporters.

But in response, Target told the Orange County Register that other workers were happy to have the overtime hours.

'When we made the decision to open our doors at 9pm on Thanksgiving, the first thing we did was reach out to all of our store leaders and ask them to have discussions with their team members and seek volunteers wanting to work,' Tina Schiel, executive vice president of stores for Target, said.

'We had so many team members who wanted to work on Thursday that hundreds of our stores are now keeping lists of volunteers who want to work if shifts open up.'