If you didn't already guess it from a barrage of sales ads in your inbox, the holiday shopping season is upon us. While Black Friday may no longer look like the crowd-filled, in-person mayhem that it was just decades ago — in large part due to the rising dependence on online shopping that was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic — the holiday sales event is still slated to attract millions of consumers. The National Retail Federation projects that an estimated 182 million are planning to shop in-stores and online through the five-day Thanksgiving weekend.