Black Friday Creeps Into Thursday Put down that turkey leg. It's time to shop. No, really. Stores typically open in the wee hours of the morning on the day after Thanksgiving known as Black Friday, named for the period when stores traditionally turn a profit for the year. But Black Friday openings have crept earlier and earlier over the past few years. Now, stores from Wal-Mart to Toys R Us are opening their doors on Thanksgiving evening, hoping Americans will be willing to shop soon after they finish their pumpkin pie. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will have early bird shopping specials at 8 p.m., two hours earlier than a year ago. Target Corp. is opening its doors at 9 p.m. on the holiday, three hours earlier than last year. Sears, which didn't open on Thanksgiving last year, is opening during from 8 p.m. and will stay open until 10 p.m. on Black Friday. And Toys R Us will be opening at 8 p.m., an hour earlier than last year. It's an effort by stores to make shopping more convenient for Americans, who still face economic uncertainty. Many shoppers are worried about high unemployment and a package of tax increases and spending cuts known as the "fiscal cliff" that will take effect in January unless Congress passes a budget deal by then. At the same time, Americans have grown more comfortable shopping on websites such as Amazon.com, where they can get cheaper prices and buy from the comfort of their home or office cubicle. Early data from IBM Smarter Commerce show that as of noon EST, online sales for Thanksgiving are up 14.3 percent from last year, with just over a quarter of consumers using a mobile device to visit a retailer's site, up from 15.8 percent in 2011. That has put pressure on brick-and-mortar stores, who can make up to 40 percent of their annual revenue during the two-month holiday shopping season, to compete. That's becoming more difficult: the National Retail Federation, an industry trade group, estimates that overall sales in November and December will rise 4.1 percent this year to $586.1 billion, or about flat with last year's growth. But the online part of that is expected to rise 15 percent to $68.4 billion, according to Forrester Research. As a result, brick-and-mortar retailers are trying everything they can to lure consumers into stores by making shopping as easy as possible. In addition to expanding their hours into Thanksgiving, many are offering free layaways and shipping, matching the cheaper prices of online rivals and updating their mobile shopping apps with more information. Michael Prothero, 19, and his friend, Kenny Fullenlove, 21, have been camped outside a Best Buy store in Toledo, Ohio, since Monday night, waiting to get 40-inch televisions, some video games and a low-priced tablet computer mainly for relatives. They came early to make sure they got the deals, even though the next person in line didn't arrive until almost 24 hours later. "Better safe than sorry," Prothero said. They know they'll miss Thanksgiving dinner with their families, but say it's worth it. "Every retailer wants to beat everyone else," said C. Britt Beemer, chairman of America's Research Group, a research firm based in Charleston, S.C. "Shoppers love it."