"It was 'Buy now, wear now,"" said lead buyer and women's fashion director Lynwood Holmberg. "We feel traffic was up over last year at both stores. We are in a luxury category, so those customers, while they may be more cautious, are still shopping." She noted the patterns were similar at Seattle and Portland, though Portland saw brisker handbag sales by Miu Miu and Christian Louboutin.

At the more casual Mario's store in the Portland suburb of Bridgeport, 3.1 Phillip Lim and Paige Premium Denim were big sellers.

In Houston, luxury specialty store La Mode Lingerie tripled its business on Friday compared with a year ago, said owner Rachel Clements, citing the store's move to a bigger locale and rising demand for pricy lingerie and loungewear as well as designer swimwear that was recently added to the store's mix.

"So far most of our shoppers are buying for themselves —they're not ready to think about gifts — that will come later in the season. We also saw an increase in first-time shoppers, including a few who spent at least $2,000," said Clements.

Neiman Marcus appeared more promotional than usual in November, offering free shipping on its Web site for most of the month. In stores, the chain on Nov. 23 to 25 allowed anyone who spent $150 to pick up a tin of chocolate chip cookies and a cookie jar valued at $20.

ONLINE RETAILERS BRACE FOR CYBER MONDAY

ComScore Inc. said consumers spent more than $9.3 billion online Nov. 1 through 23, marking a 17-percent gain versus the corresponding days last year on gift spending. Online retail spending was strong on both Thanksgiving Day (up 29 percent to $272 million) and Black Friday (up 22 percent to $531 million), outpacing the season-to-date growth rate.

According to a Shop.org survey, conducted this weekend by BIGresearch, 72 million consumers plan to shop online from home or at work today, up from 60.7 million in 2006 and 59 million in 2005. The survey found that 31.9 percent of adults will shop on Cyber Monday, up 17.3 percent over last year.

"Retailers will be unveiling a variety of incredible one-day sales on Cyber Monday to bring consumers to their Web sites," said Scott Silverman, executive director of Shop.org. "Online retailers consider Cyber Monday a virtual Black Friday and will be offering promotions that will be tough to beat later in the holiday season."