NEW YORK – U.S. retailers realized a 2.3% sales gain on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday this year, meeting expectations for the weakest holiday sales since 2009, Bloomberg reports.

Brick-and-mortar store sales totaled $12.3 billion, according to data from ShopperTrak, with Friday foot traffic sales down 11.4%. Part of that loss is attributed to more stores opening on Thanksgiving, said Bill Martin, ShopperTrak’s founder. Combining Thanksgiving and Black Friday, foot traffic eked up 2.8% to more than 1 billion store visits.

Meanwhile, e-commerce sales continued to increase, with Thanksgiving numbers up 20% from last year and Black Friday sales up 19%, IBM Corp. said.

With six fewer days this year between Thanksgiving and Christmas, retailers pushed deep discounts to lure shoppers.

More than a dozen retailers opened for the first time on Thanksgiving Day, including Macy’s, Kohl’s, and J.C. Penney.

Walmart said it processed more than 10 million register transactions from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Thanksgiving.

Mission shopping appeared to be on the rise this year, said Thom Blischok, chief retail strategist with Booz & Co. “They had an absolute plan,” he said.  “I found virtually no browsing.”

According to the National Retail Federation, November and December sales comprise 20%-40% of U.S. retailers’ annual revenue and 20% of their profit.