There were lines. And there were bargains.

Shoppers seeking great deals descended on Hawaii malls and stores this morning in the traditional kickoff to holiday gift-buying known as Black Friday.

“It seems crowded,” said Sully Boungnarith, the floor supervisor at Sketchers in Ala Moana Center who donned a Santa hat to enhance the festive atmosphere.

Fay Lee of Kaneohe had been on her feet shopping since 10:30 Thursday night after Thanksgiving dinner, hitting Macy’s at Hawaii’s largest mall. “We had to take a rest,” she said while waiting in a line of about 40 people outside the LeSportsac store before it opened at 6 a.m. “My feet are so sore.”

Like many hard-core shoppers, Lee hit retailers on Thanksgiving evening, a trend in recent years that has spread out what used to be more of a crush of shopping on Black Friday. Still, steep discounts brought out many consumers before the sun came up today.

Lee took advantage of LeSportsac’s Black Friday sale on Tokidoki bags that were 70 percent off, and used an additional 25 percent off coupon distributed to the first 50 or so people in line to pay $39 for a fanny pack normally priced at $168. “Yeah, that’s a great deal,” she said. “That’s so worth it to come out for Black Friday.”

At Kahala Mall, the first three customers in line at the local clothing retailer Adore got free designer handbags. About 40 people showed up for the 5 a.m. opening that offered 40 percent off everything.

“We have a good turnout,” said store owner Tasha Yagi.

Black Friday got its name in reference to shopping because retailers make a lot of money on this day — so much that the finances of some retailers may swing on this day from an accounting loss, which used to be recorded in red ink, to a profit that is sometimes referred to as being “in the black.”

However, the throngs of frenzied shoppers camping out for days ahead of the big sales bonanza on the day after Thanksgiving are gone. And forget the fisticuffs over flat-screen TVs.

Instead, stores around the country had sparse parking lots, calm, orderly lines, and modest traffic. Black Friday, which traditionally is the biggest shopping day of the year, almost looked like a normal shopping day. And not every shopper was happy about that.

In Denver, for instance, Susan Montoya had nearly an entire Kmart to herself Friday morning. Montoya half-heartedly flipped through a rack of girls’ holiday party dresses and looked down the store’s empty aisles.

“There’s no one out here!” she said. “This is sad.”

Black Friday for decades was a rite of passage for U.S. shoppers. Many would spend Thanksgiving evening combing through circulars to plot their shopping route for the next day based on the deals they hoped to snag. But in recent years, retailers have tried to capture holiday sales earlier and earlier.

They’ve started offering mega-discounts in stores and online earlier instead of waiting until Black Friday. And in the last few years, they’ve opened locations on Thanksgiving Day, a once-sacred holiday from retail.

That has led to the “graying” of Black Friday. In fact, according to the National Retail Federation, the nation’s largest retail trade group, nearly 60 percent of shoppers had already started holiday buying by Nov. 10.

Early numbers aren’t out yet, but the retail group expected about 30 million people shopped on Thanksgiving and 99.7 million on Black Friday. It also expects about 135.8 million people will be shopping during the four-day weekend, compared with 133.7 million last year.

The group estimates overall sales for November and December will rise 3.7 percent to $630.5 billion compared with last year.

Judging from the crowds so far, though, the shopper numbers could be hard to come by. “The frenzy and traffic levels were subdued,” said Craig Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners, a retail consultancy.

Here are the three biggest reasons for the graying of Black Friday:

YOU DON’T HAVE TO WAIT FOR DISCOUNTS

Many stores pushed discounts on holiday merchandise early. Because of that, some shoppers weren’t excited about discounts on Thanksgiving and Black Friday.

Jeff Simpson, a principal at Deloitte, also said doorbusters — fat discounts on hot items that once drew shoppers in for store openings — are losing their “umph.” Ten years ago, major retailers would focus on the 10 best items and discount them below costs, he said. Now, many stores offer several hundred doorbusters, and many of the items don’t carry a name brand.

“They got watered down,” he said. “When you run that many doorbusters, can they really be that special?”

Some shoppers already are jaded about Black Friday deals. Take Bintou Cham, who got discounts of 40 to 50 percent at J.C. Penney and other stores in New York City, but was hoping for more.

“I was looking for 70 percent off,” she said.

MORE PEOPLE SHOP ONLINE

Many stores made their deals available online and in stores for the official start of the season.

It’s not clear whether that move made more people shop online instead of heading to stores. But Deloitte’s Simpson said retailers need shoppers in the stores. “You tend to buy fewer items online,” he said.

But executives from top retailers including Wal-Mart, Target and J. C. Penney dismiss the chatter about the irrelevance of Black Friday, saying they have worked hard to blend their online operations with the physical stores. Target, Wal-Mart, Toys R Us and J.C. Penney all said they were pleased with traffic both at the stores and online for the official start of the holiday season.

J.C. Penney’s CEO Marvin Ellison said: “We saw customers going back and forth, researching online and then go to the stores.” And Wal-Mart’s Steve Bratspies, chief merchandising officer, said the chain saw more shoppers going back forth between its website and its stores compared with a year.

But sometimes retailers lose when customers go online. Ashley Walton got out early to go to stores on Black Friday, but she left disappointed. She said Wal-Mart didn’t have the tablet she wanted for her son.

She solved that quickly by ordering it on Amazon.com.

— NO ONE WILL START A FIGHT OVER ANYTHING, REALLY

Trend experts say there’s no single item that’s making shoppers rush to stores.

William Taubman, chief operating officer at Taubman Centers, which operates more than 20 U.S. malls, said that without a clear trend in fashion, there’s less of an urgency to buy.

“The trend is no trend,” he said.

For Pam Williams, the Black Friday shopping has lost a bit of its luster because there’s no rush of getting a sought-after item. “They kind of took the fun out of Black Friday when they started opening up on Thursday,” said Williams, who was shopping in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on Friday.

Not that there aren’t any hot items. Jim Silver, editor-in-chief of TTPM, an online review site, said about 10 toys are already hard to find, including certain “Star Wars” toys. Still, there doesn’t seem to be panic right now.

That’s something Keith Nelson noticed as he stood in line on Thanksgiving, waiting for Toys R Us’ 5 p.m. open: “Lines used to be longer, people would be sleeping and bringing lounge chairs out here,” he said.

Toys R Us CEO Dave Brandon said the lines weren’t as long as last year, but the traffic built throughout the night. He declined to give specific numbers.

Here are some other themes emerging on Black Friday:

PROTESTS ON CHICAGO’S MAGNIFICENT MILE

Hundreds of protesters blocked entrances to stores in Chicago’s high-end shopping district to draw attention to the police shooting of a black teenager.

The demonstration came after the release of a video this week showing the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald last year. The video touched off largely peaceful protests.

On Friday, some of the demonstrators in Chicago linked arms to form human chains in front of main entrances to stores.

Store employees directed shoppers to exit from side doors. When one person tried to get through the front door of Saks Fifth Avenue, protesters screamed at him, shouting, “Shut it down! Shut it down.”

Entrances were also blocked at the Disney Store, the Apple Store, Nike, Tiffany & Co., and Neiman Marcus.

Many shoppers seemed to take the disturbance in stride, and some even snapped photos of the crowd.

Protesters took different approaches. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, for instance, led a prayer with a group from the steps of Chicago’s historic Water Tower.

WEED FRIDAY

Colorado has a new Black Friday tradition: Marijuana shops drawing shoppers with discounted weed and holiday gift sets.

At Denver Kush Club in Denver, about two dozen customers were lined up in subfreezing temperatures and snow showers to take advantage of the deals.

The first few customers got free joints, free rolling papers and a T-shirt with purchase. Medical customers were offered ounces of marijuana for $99 — a savings of about 50 percent.

The shop blasted reggae music and welcomed the crowd with Green Friday welcome cheers. Similar deals were offered last year, the first in which retail recreational marijuana sales opened.

“We get a lot of people in the first few hours, just like any store on Black Friday,” said co-owner Joaquin Ortega. He said marijuana gift-giving is becoming more common, though most were shopping for themselves Friday.

THE GREAT OUTDOORS

At Catalina State Park just north in Arizona, dozens of families and dogs hiked through the saguaro cactus-covered mountains. Many said they didn’t plan on shopping on Black Friday anyway.

Krista Wells, of Tucson, said she wanted her daughters to understand that the holidays are about spending time with family, not shopping.

“This is about the season of bringing together and reflecting upon family and getting into the Christmas holiday. I don’t think there’s a retail holiday,” she said.

Jennifer Rojas was hiking down a steep hill with her mother. She said she tries to hike every year after Thanksgiving and likes to avoid the shopping crowds.

“I’d rather appreciate nature, rather than being at a mall or watching TV,” Rojas said.

STORES VS. WEBSITES

For the first time, analysts had predicted more than half of online traffic to retailer sites would come from smartphones than desktops during the four-day Black Friday holiday shopping weekend.

There was evidence that shoppers were vacillating between both stores and online.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s chief merchandising officer Steve Bratspies told the Associated Press that the chain saw more shoppers buying both on its website and in its stores than the same time a year ago. Target’s CEO Brian Cornell said that online sales on Thanksgiving were strong, outpacing the performance on the holiday a year ago. That’s making it Target’s biggest day online for sales yet, driven largely by electronics. He also was pleased with store traffic.

And J.C. Penney’s CEO Marvin Ellison said that the chain worked hard to make its app more user friendly, and as a result, its online sales.

“We saw customers going back and forth, researching online and then go to the stores,” he said.

Meanwhile, Chip Gentry in Atlanta headed out to stores instead of purchasing items online. He walked out of a Best Buy with an Xbox One and extra controller, saving about $150 in total.

“I’m looking for the deals online and going out to stores to get them,” he said.

– The Associated Press contributed to this story