Traffic at retail stores on Black Friday dropped 28.3% compared with 2019 levels, as Americans shifted more of their spending online and kicked off their shopping earlier in the year, according to preliminary data from Sensormatic Solutions.

Black Friday is still predicted to be the busiest in-store shopping day of the season, according to Sensormatic.

Field said that shopper traffic on Black Friday was closest to returning to 2019 levels in the South, followed by the Midwest and then the West and Northeast.

Online, retailers rang up $8.9 billion in sales on Black Friday, down from the record of about $9 billion spent on the Friday after Thanksgiving a year earlier, according to data from Adobe Analytics.

On Thanksgiving day, consumers spent $5.1 billion on the internet, flat from year-ago levels, Adobe said.

Adobe is forecasting e-commerce sales on Cyber Monday, the biggest online shopping day of the year, to be in between $10.2 billion and $11.3 billion.