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January Bargain Bonanza: let the real shopping begin!
Most shoppers said they were making returns and looking for bargains, including sisters-in-law Brona Smith and Nadean Smith of Winston-Salem and friends Kim Wilkinson and Cindi Goins of King.

Brona Smith said she bought a sweater for $15 at J.C. Penney just before Christmas but found the same sweater on sale for $10 yesterday, so she bought another in a different color.

Wilkinson waited to buy gifts this year because her sister is out of the country and won’t be home until Friday.

Retailers are really putting an extra emphasis on after-Christmas discounts.

Several of them, including Kohl’s, Belk and J.C. Penney, offered early-bird specials.

Most of the major retailers have items at steeply discounted prices, ranging from 50 percent to 75 percent off. At Toys “R” Us, customers can buy a movie and get the second for half price.

This is typically a busy time of the year for retailers.

Scott Krugman, a spokesman for the National Retail Federation, said that with returns, gift-card redemptions and clearance sales, retailers can generate up to 15 percent of their holiday sales this week.

Some retailers have less restrictive return policies than others. More retailers are keeping an eye on how frequently consumers return merchandise, primarily to make sure criminals do not take advantage of their return policies.

Warm weather kept people from buying warm apparel at the start of the season, and shoppers were really bargain-hunting.

“Consumers were waiting more this year for the big sales, the big weekend events, more so than we’ve ever seen them do,” Johndrow said.

Gift cards are going to be extremely important for retailers this year.

“We’re seeing $26 billion in gift-card sales, and they are the most No. 1 requested merchandise by consumers in terms of a gift,” Krugman said. “Retailers are going to work extra hard to get consumers into the stores this week to redeem those gift cards.”

Gift cards actually extend the holiday-shopping season as retailers cannot count gift-card sales until the cards are redeemed. The wait to see profits could be well into January and February.