Stores count heavily on post-holiday sales

Shoppers descended on stores and malls on Friday in search of post-Christmas bargains as retailers reduced prices further, hoping to recoup business in a season that will likely turn out to be only modestly better than a year ago.

Retailers are counting even more heavily on the week after Christmas to meet their sales goals, as two consecutive weekends of snow in the Northeast, a lack of must-have items, a sluggish job market and few early bargains dampened holiday shopping.

In particular, merchants are hoping that shoppers will be redeeming the ever-more-popular gift cards, which aren't recorded as final sales until they're used. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and other stores have blamed gift cards for artificially deflating holiday sales in the short-term.

Shoppers showed up early Friday at stores and malls.

"It's fun. We do after-Thanksgiving too, so people think we're crazy," said Paige Lohmeuller, who was shopping with her sister Blair Herndon at the Crabtree Valley Mall in Raleigh, N.C.

Their main purchase: maternity clothes for Herndon. Most had been purchased with a gift certificate that she received as a present.

Jim Jankowski arrived at the Rich's-Macy department store at Lenox Square Mall in Atlanta shortly after 7 a.m., but he wasn't taking advantage of the discounts of up to 75 percent. He was exchanging a dress he purchased for his wife.

"I got the wrong size," he said.

In Columbus, Ohio, shoppers started lining up outside a Target store at the Polaris shopping center just after 6:30 a.m. By the time the store opened a half-hour later, about 100 people were at the store's two entrances.

"You've got to move fast. That's why I'm wearing tennis shoes," said Christine Best, 33, of the Columbus suburb of Delaware. "They slash prices on everything Christmassy. I'm headed straight for the wrapping paper."

Best said she buys holiday gifts the day after Christmas and tucks them away for the following year. "I only bought about $100 worth of stuff before Christmas this year because I had most everything I needed last year."

At Macy's Herald Square in Manhattan, Marcia Kelly and her husband, Manton Kelly, of the Bronx, had come with a mission: to find a bargain on a coat — and snapped up a nylon Kenneth Cole Reaction jacket for him.

"I got a good deal, 50 percent off," he said.

Thirty minutes after Macy's opened, they were already toting the jacket in a shopping bag as they stood studying a display of drinking glasses that were $19.97 for four, a 60 percent reduction. They picked up two sets.