Holiday season shopping started off with a bang on Black Friday weekend, with 226 million shoppers navigating the dense crowds at malls or surfing the Web to find deals online, up from 212 million shoppers last year, according to a National Retail Federation (NRF) survey.

Shoppers spent an estimated total of $52.4 billion, with the average shopper spending $398.62 over the weekend, which was up from the $365.34 spent on average last year. A good chunk of shoppers’ cash went toward online purchases, spending about $150.53 per capita on deals they found on the Web – or 37.8 percent.

The survey also found that shoppers had plans to do more than just eat turkey and pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving, with 24.4 percent saying they visited stores to start their shopping at midnight. This was up substantially from previous years — in 2010, 9.5 percent of shoppers were in stores at midnight, and in 2009 only 3.3 percent of shoppers took a head start.

The survey, conducted Nov. 24-26 by BIGresearch, polled 3,826 consumers and has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.6 percent.