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Article snippet: The unofficial start of the holiday shopping season was this week, when many national retailers opened their doors and offered major sales. Black Friday is traditionally the big day, and we captured what it looked and felt like at American shopping malls, retailers and discount stores. Here, you’ll also find: • Sneaker sales in Los Angeles, sparse crowds in Dallas, and a dogsitter on Long Island. • Online outages threw a glitch into a big ecommerce day. • Shopping deals from The Wirecutter, a product review and recommendation site owned by The New York Times. In front of Cool Kicks, a sneaker boutique on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, Jonathan Lindsey reclined in a lawn chair, hoodie drawn snug over a custom fitted cap. About 100 people waited in a line behind him Thursday night, stretching around the corner. Mr. Lindsey, 28, said there were around 15 people ahead of him when he arrived at 9 p.m. on Thanksgiving night — 12 hours before the store would open. But he paid $60 dollars to move up to second. Like most of the people near the front of the line, he was here not for personal shopping, but for business. So the Gray Zebra Yeezy Boosts he was there to buy would never grace Mr. Lindsey’s feet. Instead, he had sold the pair in advance to a woman who had driven by earlier in a Mercedes, offering him $550 dollars for a pair that would cost him $320. “She had her son on FaceTime,” Mr. Lindsey recalled. “She’s like, ‘His birthday is tomorrow, and he wants the shoes... Link to the full article to read more