When Gap, the clothing store, held a “one day only” sale for four out of seven days this month, it set the tone for this year’s all-important Black Friday sales in America.

Black Friday, so-called because it supposedly marks the day when retailers go into the black, is America’s annual blockbuster shopping spree on the day after Thanksgiving. It is also considered to be the start of the Christmas shopping season.

Early indications are that Christmas sales will be flat, up or down by one or two percentage points — but in comparison with last year’s bloodbath on Main Street, when retail sales for December plunged 10 per cent in the biggest yearly drop since records began in 1968, most analysts regard this as good news.

Indeed, tighter controls on costs, pared down inventories and sourcing costs cut by up 10 per cent mean that even very modest sales will feed into better gross margins and profits, according to John Morris, a retail analyst with BMO Capital Markets in New York.

Mr Morris believes, however, that Gap’s repeated sales are a sign of general retail nervousness. “Retailers are hedging their bets and their optimism,” he said. “Consumers are still very selective and very deal-driven.” Hence many stores are extending their special offers and their opening hours.

Matthew Katz, head of the retail practice at AlixPartners, the global business advisor, said that consumers were cutting discretionary spending this Christmas in three different ways: they were making fewer purchases overall; they were shopping at lessexpensive stores; and they were waiting for special offers.

In an AlixPartners survey of 3,500 American adults, nearly half (48 per cent) said that they intended to spend less this Christmas than last year. The proportion planning to restrict their spending on gifts to $500 (£303) or less has risen to 60 per cent this year, from 48 per cent last year.

Shoppers holding out for deep discounts after Christmas may be disappointed, however. “In order to at least maintain share, stores are discounting early. They are also trying to educate customers as to what their plans are, so that customers will not do what they did last year, which is waiting for increasingly greater discounts,” Mike Moriarty, head of the retail practice as AT Kearney, the consultancy firm, said.

Tracy Mullins, president and chief executive of the National Retail Federation, said that in the allimportant toy and games market there was a new emphasis on low-priced toys, such as this year’s must-have item in the United States, the motorised hamster Zhu Zhu Pet, retailing at $9.99.

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