After all, retailers had one of the worst holiday shopping seasons in decades, with sales falling by double digits in nearly all categories, including apparel, luxury goods, furniture and electronics and appliances, according to SpendingPulse, a report by MasterCard Advisors that estimates retail sales from all forms of payment, including checks and cash.  Even worse for retailers, consumers bought fewer gift cards than last year — 10 to 40 percent fewer, according to various estimates. Gift cards provide an added bonus for retailers; they tend to drive sales in January, with shoppers buying other things once they are in the store.  As a result, retailers will have to work that much harder to clear Christmas inventory, which many stores were unable to trim enough ahead of the quickly softening economy. Mr. Cohen and other analysts said retailers would need popular brands and unique fashions to lure traffic in the future, not just low prices.  For example, Wal-Mart, which had a 3.4 percent sales increase in November and has been bucking grim retailing trends, said Friday it would sell slightly discounted iPhone 3Gs at nearly 2,500 stores beginning Sunday. A black 8-gigabyte model is $197; the 16-gigabyte black or white model will go for $297, with a two-year service agreement from AT&T or an upgrade. Both those prices are $2 off the regular sticker (more of a nick than the price-slashing Wal-Mart brags about).  “Our electronics associates have been preparing for many weeks for the arrival of iPhone 3G,” said Gary Severson, a senior vice president for entertainment at Wal-Mart.  Toys “R” Us said it would continue offering after-Christmas deals on brand names at least into January. On Friday the chain had buy-one-get-one-free deals on electronic learning software cartridges, and all video games selling for $19.99 or less carried offers of buying a second one for half off.  Many chains bundled products on the first day of their after-Christmas sales, a tactic that worked for them on Black Friday, the blockbuster shopping day after Thanksgiving. At J. C. Penney, a $988 leather sofa (reduced from $2,858) came with a free wing chair, normally $899. At Old Navy, T-shirts were $10.50, or $6 each if you bought two or more. At Bath and Body Works, the company’s signature collection of creams, gels and scents carried buy-two-get-one-free deals.  But all this sustained discounting has industry professionals worried not only about erosion of profits — in general, discounting merchandise more than 50 percent is a losing proposition for retailers — but also about consumer spending habits.  “Many of the senior executives we’ve talked to are worried about how we retrain the customer to pay full price,” said Joseph Feldman, a retailing analyst with Telsey Advisory Group, an equity research and consulting company.  Indeed, on Friday, Phyllis Gagliardi, 56, of Trumbull, Conn., was unimpressed with the $29.99 price tag on a cashmere sweater at the Ann Taylor Loft in Times Square. “They should be lower than this,” she said.  Matthew F. Katz, a managing director in the retail practice of AlixPartners, a restructuring firm, estimated that it would be “several quarters, at best, before consumers go back to a more normal shopping psyche.”  Consumers are becoming so accustomed to stunning discounts that even liquidators are rethinking their pricing strategy.  “We’re going to have to be extremely aggressive in terms of our discounting because we’re going to have to beat every other retailer that’s already been offering 70, 80 percent off,” said Jim Schaye, chief executive and president of Hudson Capital Partners, which has run liquidation sales for bankrupt retailers like Linens ’n Things, Mervyns and Whitehall Jewelers.  Retailers will most likely try to wean shoppers off such deep discounting in February and March, when they begin introducing their spring merchandise. But if their attempts to sell at full price fail, then consumers will once again feel they have the upper hand, and will wait to see prices fall.  Hana Ben-Shabat, a partner in the retail practice of the A. T. Kearney consulting company, said the storewide discounting that took place this holiday season was a result of retailers’ being blindsided by an economy that was far worse than they had anticipated. Come spring, she said, they will be more selective when choosing which products and categories to offer at lower prices.  “It’s just not sustainable to keep selling everything at a 50, 60, 70 percent discount,” she said.  In their most recent earnings calls, retailers like Saks and Neiman Marcus admitted their profit margins were taking a beating.  “It’s not anything we like,” Burton M. Tansky, president and chief executive of the Neiman Marcus Group, said of all the promotions. “It’s a necessity.”  Typically, retailers wait about eight weeks before putting merchandise on sale, but analysts said that given the economy, this spring they may wait only about two or three weeks.  “There is no more patience,” Mr. Cohen of the NPD Group said. “The rules have changed.”  A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Stores Sweeten The Discounts With Add-Ons. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
Analysts say consumers expecting even better deals after Christmas will not be disappointed, though they should expect more “bundling” from retailers.