• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, December 2, 2008

Once upon a time--okay, maybe even a year ago--retailers regarded their Black Friday circulars as top-secret documents, unveiled just as consumers began to marinate their turkeys. In some cases, they even sued when sale prices leaked out early.

This year, not so much. More and more retailers--including big ones like Walmart, Kohl's and Macy's--released their circulars days in advance of Black Friday, making sure that consumers could get their hands on sale prices early enough to plan their weekend shopping with surgical precision.

"Retailers, working so hard to stretch holiday shopping over a longer period, went over the top this year," says Vikram Sharma, CEO of ShopLocal.com, a Chicago-based cross-channel Web site. "While historically they kept their deals close to the vest for as long as they could, this year they just wanted to make sure they got the information out."

ShopLocal reported a 21% jump in Black Friday deals offered by retailers. "That's a pretty big number," he says. "Not only did stores discount more heavily, they promoted those discounts much more heavily. They were less concerned about losing a little profit, and more concerned with reaching as many people as possible."

As a result, the Web site says it saw a 16% surge in consumers using the Internet to organize their holiday shopping. Traffic to department stores and mass merchandiser sites was up 30%. Overall, traffic to circular sites peaked at about 9 a.m. on Wednesday, then again on Thursday at 9 p.m. as shoppers solidified their plans. The Thursday night peak set an all-time record, with just under 11 million page views in a single hour.

Sharma believes the strategy may pay off for retailers, despite the soft economy. While 51% of those in its polls say they plan to spend less on holiday gifts, "some of these deals are too good to pass up, and they are shopping more for themselves than they might have expected to."

Overall, he says, electronics and deep discounts on apparel received the most attention from consumers.

Still, observers are concerned that all those steep discounts may cripple retailers' profits. Deutsche Bank, in its note on the weekend's activity, noted that the strong early rush on Black Friday had a heavy emphasis on discounting and value, "but then traffic faded throughout the weekend, a trend we expect to continue. Also, we believe ticket levels were likely down year-over-year due to discounting and consumer's stretched budgets."

Sporting goods was a surprisingly strong performer, it notes, while traffic at Best Buy was also "above average, with gaming a preferred product."