A record number of retailers offered an early start to the Christmas shopping season last week by opening their stores on Thanksgiving Day, but the move didn’t result in an increase in sales.

The Associated Press (AP) is reporting that the new store hours drew larger crowds into shopping malls last week, but those shoppers opted to keep their wallets closed. A survey of almost 4,500 shoppers conducted for The National Retail Federation found that 141 million people said they planned to Christmas shop over the four-day Thanksgiving weekend, up from 137 million last year; however, spending over the period actually declined 2.9 percent to $57.4 billion.

Experts say consumers should expect even steeper discounts over the season as retailers try to lure people to spend money.

“The economy spoke loud and clear over the past few days,” said Brian Sozzi, CEO and chief equities strategist at Belus Capital Advisors, to the AP. “We are going to see an increase in markdowns.”

Shoppers want the same discounts they’ve been getting since the recession began, and many stores have exacerbated that expectation this year by offering bargains earlier in the season.

” . . .(I)t seems they’ve created a vicious cycle in which they’ll need to constantly offer bigger sales. Shoppers who took advantage of ‘holiday’ deals before Thanksgiving may have deal fatigue and are cautious about buying anything else unless it’s heavily discounted,” the AP reports.

Major retailers such as Wal-Mart and Toys-R-Us said their Thanksgiving crowds were strong, but the early start to Black Friday only caused sales to move forward with Black Friday sales actually decreasing by 13.2 percent.

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