Consumers made repeat trips to US stores and spent more on bargains this holiday weekend, but the early rush is unlikely to save retailers from a bleak sales season, analysts said on Sunday.

Early results from the Black Friday weekend that kicks off US holiday shopping showed that sales grew, both in stores and online, fuelled by repeat trips, heavier online sales and deep discounts from retailers across the price spectrum.

Industry groups and analysts said the Black Friday numbers did not change their view that this year will be the weakest holiday sales season in years.

"We take all of this into context and realise Black Friday is not going to save the holiday season," National Retail Federation spokeswoman Ellen Davis said. "Regardless of retail sales, retail profits are another matter. Everything they sold was at a razor-thin margin."

According to the NRF survey, shoppers said they spent an average of 7.2 per cent more per person at nearly €295 during the four-day holiday weekend from US Thanksgiving on Thursday through Sunday. Total spending was €32 billion.

More than 172 million shoppers said they visited stores and websites during that time, up from 147 million a year ago, the NRF said. Excluding repeat visits, the number of people who said they shopped over the weekend rose to 110 million from 99.5 million.

The NRF kept its forecast for total holiday sales growth of 2.2 per cent to €370.4 billion, which would make 2008 the weakest holiday season in six years. Other analysts have forecast sales could be their weakest in nearly two decades.

The NRF said consumers completed more of their shopping during the Black Friday weekend this year than in the past. Momentum is likely to drop sharply in the coming weeks and stores may need to offer even more aggressive discounts.

The NRF data comes from a poll of 3,370 consumers conducted by BIGresearch from Thursday through Saturday and includes consumers' shopping plans for Sunday.

Investors "may see (the weekend's data) as supportive of some stability in the consumer, but we believe that is not the case," said Richard Hastings, a consumer strategist with Global Hunter Securities LLC, Hastings.

He expects about 1 million US jobs to be lost during the holiday period of November, December and January, with retail sales falling six per cent to eight per cent in that time. "That would put this cycle on track to compete with 1974 as one of the worst layoff cycles during a holiday season," he said.

In a survey conducted by America's Research Group, 38 per cent of 809 respondents said they spent less this weekend than a year ago, while 18.9 per cent said they spent more.

"There's no way retail sales could be up when twice as many consumers spent less," said Britt Beemer, chief executive officer and founder of the group.

Beemer plans to cut his holiday sales forecast from the 1 percent decline he was already expecting after viewing survey results from the weekend. That forecast was the first sales decline he had predicted in 23 years of conducting holiday spending surveys.

According to the NRF, more than half of this weekend's shoppers visited stores and websites of discount chains such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Target Corp, lured by eye-popping bargains like a 42-inch Polaroid LCD high-definition television for €551.98 on Walmart.com.

Other areas that did well, NRF said, were specialty chains that sell electronics, such as Best Buy Co. Inc., and chains that sell apparel, such as Aeropostale Inc.

Sales of women's sweaters, jeans and boots were strong at several of Taubman Centers' malls, as well as gadgets including GPS systems, MP3 players and Nintendo Co's Wii game console. Apple's iPod topped online best-seller lists through the weekend as well.

Taubman, which owns or manages 24 US shopping centres, gathered anecdotal information from a sampling of stores.

Meanwhile, luxury brands are likely to take a hit.

"Those that don't discount to protect their brands will have a tougher time," said Michael Unger, principal in the retail practice at Archstone Consulting, referring to prestige names such as Gucci and Chanel. "The consumers that usually shop there are the ones that are now at the Bloomingdale's 40-per cent off rack or the Neiman Marcus discount rack."

Diane Leeds, 40, of Sacramento, was shopping at a California Saks store on Sunday morning, and was surprised to see deep discounts on designer names like Diane Von Furstenberg, Gucci and Valentino.

"These are the types of deals you see after Christmas," she said, holding up a colourful Von Furstenberg top that was 50 per cent off.