Preliminary Black Friday sales data won't start coming in until later in the day on Black Friday or the day after, but reports of Thanksgiving sales are showing strong spending.

Sales figures from at least two companies that track shopping are showing that Thanksgiving Day sales this year were up from last year.

Shoppers spent a record $6.4 billion online on Thanksgiving Day, according to Adobe. That's up 5.3% from last year as shoppers took advantage of Cyber Week deals, Adobe said.

The actual spend for the day was better than Adobe had forecast ($6.37 billion). Online sales peaked earlier in the day, Adobe said, with the most robust sales happening between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Last year, the peak shopping hours were 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.

“The magnitude of discounts was the big story on Thanksgiving yesterday, as retailers leaned into delivering great deals to drive consumer demand online,” Vivek Pandya, lead analyst for Adobe Digital Insights said in a press release. “This was further propped up by impulse-led mobile shopping and the use of generative AI which assisted shoppers in locating the best deals, two trends that helped deliver higher-than-expected overall spend on Thanksgiving.\\"

Adobe is anticipating Black Friday sales online to be a record $11.7 billion, up 8.3% from last year. Adobe is forecasting Cyber Monday sales to be $14.2 billion, up 6.3% from last year.

Adobe said it saw an uptick in large purchases for the home on Thanksgiving, as well as video games and electronics. Online sales for video game consoles rose by 740% versus average spending in October of this year. Refrigerators and freezer sales were up 720%.

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Data from Salesforce also reported that Thanksgiving Day sales were up. There were $35.6 billion in digital sales worldwide, up 6% from last year, and $8.4 billion in the U.S., according to Salesforce. That was an increase of 3% from last year's Thanksgiving Day online sales.

Salesforce anticipates Black Friday to be the largest online shopping day, with $78 billion in online global sales (up 5% from last year) and $18 billion in the U.S. (up 3%).

The top performing U.S. shopping category on Thanksgiving Day, according to Salesforce, was active apparel and footwear, which had a 19% sales growth from last year's numbers.

Betty Lin-Fisher is a consumer reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at blinfisher@USATODAY.com or follow her on X, Facebook or Instagram @blinfisher and @blinfisher.bsky.social on Bluesky. Sign up for our free The Daily Money newsletter, which breaks down complex consumer and financial news. Subscribe here.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Did people shop online on Thanksgiving Day? What we know.