I work at a big box tech store in the US and we expect less traffic every year. It's still the biggest sales event of the year in-store of course but now the sales are spread out across the entire month of November.
As of Friday you can almost all the same deals as on Black Friday, there may be a few unconfirmed sales to still come, but they are in full Black Friday mode already.
The amount of people asking me if there are going to be better prices on Black Friday is staggering, the general public is still adapting to Black Friday being a longer event than piling into stores all at once.
It works out for everyone, customers don't have to rush into the store for a free for all on sales, and the store can make that money.
At this point, shopping online and maybe setting your purchases for pickup is the way to go, but it is not worth it to go into the store and shop in real time unless you really want to experience it.. stores are not staffed enough to support good sales experiences for a majority of customers and a lot of the people that go into the store now are looking for a handholding experience.