Nov 23 - With higher income consumers more positive about their financial prospects but lower income consumers still struggling, retailers are reaching out with smartphone and iPad apps, extending store hours for the holiday season kick-off that starts November 26 this year.

Sears and Wal-Mart Stores Inc are even open on U.S. Thanksgiving Day that Thursday.

The key is to not only attract consumer shopping for "doorbuster" deals that start well before dawn, but to nab the attention of middle and higher-income shoppers who are feeling more comfortable about spending as the job market stabilizes.

"It's critical to get off on a good start for Black Friday because it's hard to make up sales if you fall behind your plan overall," Barclays Capital analyst Bob Drbul said.

Black Friday is a term co-opted by retailers to refer to the time of year when their business moves into the black, or turns a profit. This year, the event will be about keeping sales momentum that picked up modestly throughout the year.

"For the past three years, (store) trips have been declining. What we have been starting to see the last couple of months is that middle and upper consumers have started increasing those trips," said James Russo, vice president at market and consumer information monitor The Nielsen Co.

Retail stocks in general are up sharply since August, buoyed by signs of sales and earnings improvement. The Standard & Poor's Retailing Index is up 23 percent, compared with a 13.9 percent increase in the S&P 500.

As many as 138 million shoppers could hit U.S. stores this "Black Friday" weekend, according to the National Retail Federation.

The trade group has forecast a 2.3 percent increase in sales for November and December, up from 0.4 percent a year earlier. Other forecasts call for even greater increases.

EARLY ENOUGH?

Discounter Target Corp is among those that got a jump on Black Friday, with a four-day sale that began on Sunday and that included more items than last year, said Troy Risch, executive vice president of stores for the retailer.

That tactic of early sales has appealed to some shoppers.

"What I really like is that a lot of stores are opening before Black Friday," said Gabriella Jones, a 49-year-old from Lake Forest, California, who was in Times Square traveling with her daughter on Wednesday. "It's almost like Black Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday."