Businesses from insurance to over-the-counter medicine see the crowds attracted by Black Friday shopping and figure out ways to cash in.

The Swedish furniture maker Ikea increasingly relies on CGI -- computer-generated imagery -- to "make" the items in its catalog. It's enough to raise the question of whether computer graphics could ever replace people in the fashion photography business.

The national retail federation says sales over the last 4 days jumped 16 percent from last year. Consumers spent an average of 398 dollars on Black Friday-- and Black Thursday, and all Black Saturday and Sunday. And about 40 percent of that shopping was done online.