A man was shot during Black Friday shopping at a New Jersey mall, sending terrified shoppers running and hiding in stores.

The man was shot in the wrist on Friday night at The Mills at Jersey Gardens in Elizabeth, city spokeswoman Kelly Martins said.

She said his injuries didn’t appear life-threatening.

No suspect was in custody, and the victim was not co-operating with police, Ms Martins said. Police were reviewing camera footage.

The mall was evacuated after the shooting, which happened in a hallway between a Tommy Hilfiger and a Marshalls discount clothing and homewares store, Ms Martins said.

Carli Disla, her boyfriend and their 6-week-old daughter were in a Cohoes fashion store, heading to the cash registers, when the couple noticed people running.

“They were yelling, ‘Hide, everyone, hide! They are shooting!”’ Disla, 22, told The Associated Press in an interview via Twitter.

She and her boyfriend grabbed the newborn out of her car seat, ran to the back of the store and hid in its receiving area.

The store’s security gates were pulled down and the exits locked until police and state troopers told shoppers and staffers they couldn’t leave until everything was under control, Disla said.

They were allowed to leave around 9pm.

“It was a horrible experience and very traumatising,” Ms Disla said. But fortunately, the baby didn’t pick up on the fright — she slept through the whole experience.

Jeanette Bermudez told local station WPIX-TV she was working as a manager in a store when she suddenly heard people running so intensely they sounded like they were stomping.

Ms Bermudez and her co-workers shut the shop’s security gate and ushered shoppers into the back.

Geni Genuino was getting some food when the sound of gunshots suddenly erupted. “Everyone started running out of the mall,” Ms Genuino told the AP via Twitter, adding that the sound stopped for a few minutes, then seemed to start again.

Finally, Ms Genuino found an exit and ran outside.

The mall had been open since 10am. Thursday to accommodate Black Friday shoppers, and about 25,000 people visited throughout the two days, Ms Martins said. A call to the mall went unanswered, and a management representative did not immediately respond to an email.

Meanwhile, violence also broke out during the Black Friday rush at a mall in Syracuse, New York, where police told local media that two men were stabbed around 4:15pm.

It wasn’t immediately clear what sparked the confrontation in a Macy’s store at Destiny USA. Officers found one man stabbed in the abdomen and another man wounded elsewhere on his body. Both are in their 20s and were taken to a hospital, police said.

The mall’s management said in a statement that the bloodshed was an “isolated incident” and “absolutely unacceptable.”

The management said it “strengthens our resolve to remain vigilant.”

WHAT IS BLACK FRIDAY?
Across the United States, thousands of shoppers flocked to stores on Thanksgiving or woke up before dawn the next day to take part in this most famous ritual of American consumerism.

Shoppers spent their holiday lined up outside the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, by 4pm. Thursday, and the crowd had swelled to 3,000 people by the time doors opened at 5am. Friday morning.

In Ohio, a group of women was so determined, they booked a hotel room on Thursday night to be closer to the stores.

In New York City, one woman went straight from a dance club to a department store in the middle of the night.

Many shoppers said Black Friday is as much about the spectacle as it is about doorbuster deals.

Kati Anderson said she stopped at Cumberland Mall in Atlanta on Friday morning for discounted clothes as well as “the people watching.”

Her friend, Katie Nasworthy, said she went to the mall instead of shopping online because she likes to see the Christmas decorations.

“It doesn’t really feel like Christmas until now,” said Kim Bryant, shopping in suburban Denver with her daughter and her daughter’s friend, who had lined up at 5:40am, then sprinted inside when the doors opened at 6am.

Brick-and-mortar stores have worked hard to prove they can counter the competition from online behemoth Amazon.

From Macy’s to Target and Walmart, US retailers are blending their online and store shopping experience with new tools like digital maps on smart phones and more options for shoppers to buy online and pick up at stores. And customers, frustrated with long checkout lines, can check out at Walmart and other stores with a salesperson in store aisles.

Consumers nearly doubled their online orders that they picked up at stores from Wednesday to Thanksgiving, according to Adobe Analytics, which tracks online spending.

For Black Friday, online spending was on track to hit more than $6.4 billion ($A8.85 billion), according to Adobe.