Generally strong retail sales on Black Friday gave way to a Cyber Monday whose online discounts seemed to lose some of their luster with consumers, leaving retailers in Utah and beyond to wonder what the rest of the crucial holiday season will bring.

Stepped-up online promotions designed to get consumers tired of the crowds at stores to keep shopping at their work desks or from home on Monday might have fallen victim to weeks of already heavy discounting both at regular stores and online, retail analysts said.

In fact, some in the industry worried that deep discounting might be masking bigger problems.

"I think this is going to be the last gasp for a lot of retailers," said Patrick Bryne, CEO of Salt Lake City online retailer Overstock.com. "What's going on is the brick-and-mortar retailers are dropping prices to flush out their supply chain, I think in anticipation of a bunch of store closings."

Byrne said Overstock, which was offering free shipping on Cyber Monday, said the strong sales his company saw on Black Friday were not sustained on Saturday and Sunday, which saw activity dip from a year ago. The trend was continuing on Cyber Monday.

Though shopping nationwide also trailed off, representatives of two local retail centers that drew lots of bargain-hunting shoppers on Black Friday (so called because it had historically been the day retailers turned profitable for the year) said their tenants were generally pleased with shopping activity the rest of the weekend and on Monday.

"We were expecting a drop-off, but our crowds on Saturday and Sunday were equal to last year," said Nancy Gray, general manager at Tanger Outlet Center near Park City. "It probably was because of the bargains. Shoppers obviously are spending selectively. Our retailers had specials all through the weekend and those will continue through the holidays."

Natalie Watson, spokeswoman for South Towne Center in Sandy, said, "We looked around this weekend and saw busy shoppers carrying bags. This was very similar to past Black Friday weekends. [Discounts] were still a key factor, sales items were really moving, jeans, sweaters, lotions.

"There's no question consumers are focused on price, so merchants are trying to put their foot forward."

Shoppers counting on continued discounts had some analysts downgrading the impact of Cyber Monday and worrying whether the industry could collectively maintain any momentum between now and Christmas.

"People are expecting that deals will only get better as we approach the Christmas time frame," said Youssef Squali, an analyst at Jefferies & Co. "So while Cyber Monday is significant I wouldn't say [it's] the only day to track. People may opt to wait a little more."

Sales nationally rose 3 percent, to $10.6 billion, on Friday from the Black Friday a year ago, but slipped 0.8 percent, to $6 billion, on Saturday, said ShopperTrak RCT, a research firm that tracks total retail sales at more than 50,000 outlets. Total retail sales for Friday and Saturday combined rose 1.9 percent from a year ago. ShopperTrak co-founder Bill Martin expects sales pulled back again on Sunday, for an estimated 1 percent rise over the three-day weekend.

A more complete sales picture of the weekend will be known by Thursday, when the nation's retailers report November same-store sales, or sales at stores opened at least a year. Many analysts expect the period could show a rare drop in sales.

Retailers are hoping the traffic has migrated online. Nielsen Online reported that online traffic grew 10 percent year-over-year on Black Friday to 31.7 million unique visitors across 120 online retailers. And online billing site PayPal said transactions increased 34 percent and online payment volume rose 26 percent on Black Friday.

Internet research company comScore said Sunday that online spending on Thanksgiving Day and Friday was up 2 percent compared with a year ago. While slightly better than the flat growth comScore has predicted for the holidays, the increase is still drastically lower than the 19 percent growth last year. For the holiday season to date, online sales are down about 4 percent to $10.41 billion, according to comScore.

The most likely candidate for busiest online spending day this year is Monday, Dec. 15, comScore spokesman Andrew Lipsman said, as consumers rush to make sure gifts can be shipped in time for Christmas.