For Maricel Cruz, a teacher from Rosemead, the weak economy meant cutting her holiday budget by hundreds of dollars. And, for the first time, she bought most of her gifts from Wal-Mart.
"Normally we spend well over a thousand, more like two thousand," Cruz, 40, said while loading up on gifts at a Wal-Mart in Rosemead on Friday. "But everything in there is so cheap, which is why we finally came here to do our shopping."
Among the weekend's top sellers: clothing and accessories; books, DVDs, CDs and video games; consumer electronics; and toys.
Despite being the most-requested present, gift card purchasing dropped 10%, with about 1 in 5 shoppers buying a gift card over the weekend, the National Retail Federation said. With a wave of retail bankruptcies expected early next year, consumers may be worried about buying gift cards from stores that might not be around for much longer, experts said.
Major retailers are slated to release November sales results Thursday.
Although analysts have questioned the profitability of so many discounts, retailers have signaled that the huge markdowns won't end soon.
John Braeger, vice president of Garys Cos., which operates a handful of upscale retail stores in Southern California, said the Gary shops had offered more coupons and markdowns lately to lure shoppers.
"It's been somewhat challenging so far this season," he said. "We've had to discount a little more than typical, just to be competitive in today's market with everything going on."
Even though Black Friday is over, Braeger said the stores would continue to do "whatever we need to do to get people in."
--
Times staff writer Nathan Olivarez-Giles contributed to this report.
--
andrea.chang@latimes.com
