SALES l So-so start to holiday season

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Some stores offered blockbuster promotions on Black Friday — so nicknamed because it is when retailers traditionally moved from the red into the black — that had shoppers standing in the bitter cold in the wee hours of the morning.

Wal-Mart set the stage with aggressive promotions, offering to price-match competitors and selling HP Pavilion laptops for $398. The company estimated that 2 million people nationwide filed into its stores in the first hour after they opened last Friday. Target offered similar bargains, including a 15-inch LCD TV for $188.

‘‘Those that promoted heavily got market share,’’ Niemira said. ‘‘Those that did not seemed to lose a little bit of ground.’’

Wal-Mart Stores said sales last month at stores open at least one year grew 4.3 percent compared with last year. The deep discounts offered on Black Friday may have slightly depressed the numbers, said Bill Martin, co- founder of ShopperTrak RCT, a Chicago research firm.

Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest retailer, said computers, dolls, portable DVD players and video games were big sellers over Thanksgiving weekend, and it expects sales to jump another 2 to 4 percent in December.

Trailing Wal-Mart was Target with a 2.6 percent sales increase over November 2004, well below the company’s original projections of a 4 percent to 6 percent increase. The company said it hopes that December will bring a solid sales boost of 4 percent to 5 percent.

Several department stores posted lackluster results, with sales dropping 3.4 percent last month for Federated Department Stores, which includes Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s. The chain recently acquired May Department Store, but those stores are not included in that sales figure.

Consumers are still feeling ‘‘a little malaise,’’ said Richard Hodos, president of retail real estate firm Madison HGCD. Gas prices have dropped from their record highs, but hefty home-heating bills still loom and the housing market seems to have cooled.

Niemira said growth was also dampened by gift cards, which are booming but aren’t counted until they’re redeemed, and by the Internet.

Monday was one of the biggest sales days for online retailers. Consumer research firm comScore Networks estimated that shoppers spent about $485 million — a 26 percent increase over last year.

Analysts expect sales at brick-and-mortar stores to slow down early this month. Shoppers are tired after the big Thanksgiving weekend and need time to recharge, they said.

‘‘The pattern about to see for that we’re the holiday season — and we see it every year — is that . . . there’s a big bang and then there’s a lull,’’ said Scott Krugman, spokesman for the National Retail Federation, a trade group.

But retailers are counting on shoppers to rally, and analysts said that stores should pull out all the stops to lure them in.

‘‘It will be a nail-biting experience, and it will come down to the very, very end,’’ Hodos said.