With nine family members — adults, teenagers and a toddler in tow — Ludivina Zuniga stretched her shopping spree over two days and never left the Harlem Irving Plaza mall in a Chicago suburb.

For Mrs. Zuniga and so many others taking advantage of the expanded store hours on Thanksgiving that spilled into Black Friday, the biggest shopping event of the year has become less of a frantic sprint driven by the drum beat of opening times, and more like a relay race, with purchases delivered several times to the car still parked in the lot.

For others, it’s a shopping spree split between trips on both days.

While some malls across the country were busy during the traditional postholiday shopping on Friday, the crowds at others seemed sparse to some regular customers, who compared them to a regular weekend’s atmosphere. Perhaps the earlier Thanksgiving hours and the increase in online shopping — with so many e-tailers offering competitive deals — had lessened the desire to peruse racks of clothes in crowded stores.

Still, customers sensed there were deals to be had on both days, and parking lots at some malls were jammed again on Friday. At the Westfield Garden State Plaza mall in New Jersey, a few of the upscale stores like Louis Vuitton opened without the fanfare of special sales. That didn’t deter Ozzoi Altimi, 20, and his friend, Sam Fad, 23, who had waited for it to open a few minutes before 9 a.m. The two men, both local college students but originally from India, said they were on the hunt for shoes, each with a budget of $800 a pair.