Shoppers got up before the crack of dawn on Friday to stand outside and take a chance at nabbing some favorite items at low prices.

We visited Oakwood Mall and Best Buy in Eau Claire late Friday morning to see how shoppers were faring on this busiest shopping day of the year.

Hannah Mosterd and her husband are visiting family in Eau Claire for the holiday weekend, she says, “My husband is mainly looking for Blu-rays he's got quite a stack in his hand right now.”

While Jason Tape drove in from Boyceville Friday morning, he says his shopping list includes, “Ahh just some quick books, some PS3 games ya know, maybe a TV if the credit allows it I guess.”

Richard Postlewaite arrived at Best Buy around 11 in Eau Claire, he says, “Shopping for an iPod, one of those new touch screen iPods’. And of course my children want to buy everything in the store, but were gonna narrow it down to maybe a laptop.”

While Mosterd, Tape and Postlewaite all chose to sleep in Friday morning, others like Kristen Lake had a different idea, “My mom and sister got up at 3:30, I waited and got up at 5, so I could sleep in a little.”

But whether they got up at 2 or 7 Friday morning, lots of shoppers say they were happy with their findings.

Mosterd says, “Pretty good yea, the Blu-rays we've seen have amazing prices, really. Lake agrees, saying, “Yea, a lot of really good prices, really good deals.”

While the stereotype of black Friday often includes angry rushing customers, Best Buy supervisor Chad Hendricks says fortunately that's not what Best Buy saw at 5 Friday morning when the doors were opened. He says, “Actually very polite, it was nice you plan for the worst and we got the best, which was awesome.”

But one reason there wasn't a mad rush is because of a plan put in place before the doors slid open. Hendricks says, “For the popular items we always hand out tickets so there isn't a mad rush which makes things go very smoothly.”

And that is something to be thankful for on this biggest shopping day of the year, after Thanksgiving.

Consumer reports say 65 percent of shoppers will cut back on their holiday shopping this year.

That's down from last year when 76 percent of shoppers said they were scaling back on holiday spending.