Will Black Friday live up to the hype?

Can Black Friday live up to the hype of being the biggest shopping day of the year? Retailers are about to find out.

Black Friday’s sales power has been diluted by e-commerce deals that kick off early in November, and deep-discount "doorbuster" specials that are rolled out throughout the holiday weekend, including Thanksgiving Day. But it's still a critical piece of the all-important holiday shopping season, which contributes an outsized chunk of retailer revenue.

“It is less important simply because sales are stretched over a longer period of time,’’ says Dave Brandon, Toys R Us' CEO. “But make no mistake ... It’s a very big shopping day and certainly one of the elements of the shopping season we need to execute well if we want to be successful."

The National Retail Federation predicts Black Friday will be the winner this holiday weekend: 74% of consumers plan to shop the day after Thanksgiving, compared with 21% who expect to scour deals on the holiday. A Deloitte survey of 1,200 consumers  found that 79% said they expected to shop on Black Friday.

“Black Friday remains one of the busiest shopping days of the year, with Americans planning to take advantage of aggressive in-store and digital promotions over the entire holiday weekend,” Matthew Shay, president and CEO of the NRF, said in a statement.

Black Friday deals go far beyond a single day.  RadioShack, for instance, began offering special prices last Friday and will extend them all the way through Monday. Walmart began offering some Black Friday specials, including an Acer laptop for less than $300 and a $79 trampoline, on Nov. 10 to shoppers who'd downloaded the store's app. Most of its Black Friday discounts will become available online starting at 12:01 a.m. Thanksgiving Day.

The Black Friday shopping frenzy is increasingly moving online, and Black Friday net sales in store have been in decline, according to analytics firm RetailNext. Sales dipped 1.6% last year compared with 2014 and dropped 14.1% in 2014 from the previous year. Traffic also slipped, dropping 1.8% in 2015 vs. the previous year and 16% in 2014 compared with 2013.

Although e-commerce, and mobile shopping in particular, is surging, traditional retailers still garner roughly 90% of their sales in the actual store. Black Friday remains a key event to get shoppers in the door.

Toys R Us will open its doors at 5 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day, then will keep the stores open for 30 hours straight. It's a move to woo consumers off the couch and boost sales this Black Friday above previous years. Besides giving shoppers a major window in which to shop, "we've put together a long list ...  of discounts and incentives for people to visit our store," Brandon says.

Brian Yarbrough, consumer analyst at Edward Jones, said many retailers come up with innovative ways to get shoppers to come out to the storefront. "They offer store only deals," he says. "Some will begin at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving night, and some will be at noon the following day. They want to keep traffic consistent."