After-Christmas sales were enough to lure shoppers back into stores Saturday, giving retailers hope for a better than expected holiday shopping season.

“It’s been hit or miss this whole holiday season,” said Jeremy Couey, store manager for the Gap at the Northwest Arkansas Mall. He added he expects sales numbers for 2009 to be an improvement compared with 2008. On Saturday, the Gap was offering 40 percent off sale items.

“It’s a bargain time for shopping right now,” Couey added.

Jerrilyn Harper, of Springdale, planned to take advantage of sales.

“The sales at Dillard’s is what brought me here,” Harper said over lunch at the mall’s food court, while a pianist played “My Heart Will Go On,” the theme song to the movie “Titanic.”

Just across the court, Mark Kelley of Bella Vista was eating Asian food with this 5-year-old son William.

“We’re here for the sales and to return some things,” Mark Kelley said, and added he probably spent more this Christmas season that last year.

“And to get some food here that we don’t always get up north,” he added, pointing a plate of noodles and stir-fry.

Across the mall, signs boasted huge discounts. Baby Gap was offering 70 percent off some items. Banana Republic took 50 percent off of purchases for sale items bought before noon. At 11:30 a.m. about dozen people stood in line to check out.

Not far away, club music spilled out of Abercrombie & Fitch, the “casual luxury” clothing retailer geared toward the college-age set.

“We did about the same level of business that we did last year,” said Josh Thomas, 28, the store manager, clad in jeans, T-shirt and flip-flops. “The big thing is, people exchanging and then spending gift cards.”

Further south, visitors took to the still icy sidewalks in downtown.

“We’re looking for deals and ‘just the right thing,’” said Derek Porter of Little Rock, as he gazed into the shop windows at Sound Warehouse. He was in town visiting family and had already been to Cheap Thrills, the vintage clothing shop, and planned to lunch at Hugo’s.

Things are looking up for Nightbird Books, another local shop, this one on Dickson Street.

“No returns yet,” chirped Lisa Sharp, the store’s owner.

“We were up this year, maybe 20 percent,” Sharp said of her holiday sales. “I’m very pleased.”

Sharp shares her bookstore with Hamontree’s, a sandwich shop, that was still packed with diners after 2 p.m. on Saturday.

Kevin Fendley, 38, manager of the Pack Rat Outdoor Center, reported a healthy Christmas season that is expected to surpass last year’s.

“This is kind of a time for people to get what they really want,” Fendley said of day-after-Christmas shopping. “They’re changing out for the right size or color, that sort of thing. Very few people come in here and just say, ‘I want a refund.’”

Hot items this year — or perhaps more appropriately, warm items — were the usual suspects such as fleece jackets by Patagonia, North Face or the newer brand, Avalanche.

Pack Rat, in Fayetteville since 1973, doesn’t follow the typical trend of big mark-downs on the day after Christmas, and instead will have a big sale at the end of January or beginning of February.

“Then we’ll have our big clearance sale, which is pretty big,” Fendley said.

What didn’t seem to be affecting sales was cold temperatures and some streets still slick with patches of ice and snow. Unless you count the Christmas day audience numbers at the Malco Razorback Cinema. Only three or four movies sold out on Christmas day, said Stephanie Parker, a supervisor at the movie-house.

“We would normally have five or six,” she added.

But this could be more the result of big movies opening before Christmas day, she added.