Perhaps it was the bad weather in the Northeast the kept many shoppers home this weekend or perhaps shoppers are waiting for retailers to drop prices further, but the result seems to be that traffic and sales were better than last weekend if still weak. According to research firm Retail Metrics, visits to various malls on Saturday indicated that “teen chains were on sale in force but generally dead.”

The firm noted especially that traffic at Abercrombie & Fitch Inc. (NYSE: ANF) namesake and Hollister stores “had very few customers despite offering significant discounts of 50% off tops among other discounts.”

A&F was not the only retailer facing problems. J.C. Penney Co Inc. (NYSE: JCP) did not appear to be having a good day. At Penney’s store, pricing was heavily promotional and traffic was fairly busy, but other departments were “relatively quiet” and the home store particularly so.

Big box retailer Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) was “very busy” according to Retail Metrics while Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) stores were less so, with fewer customers and sales being observed.

The good news, according to Retail Metrics, is that retailers have not yet panicked and cut prices on everything by 70%. Teen retailer Aeropostale Inc. (NYSE: ARO) was close though with price chopped by 60% on all items, the same promotional pricing the stores maintained on the Black Friday weekend.

Next weekend — the last before Christmas — will be the key for retailers. Consumers have been purchasing cars, appliances, and relatively expensive electronic gear, cutting into sales from apparel and specialty retailers. There are only so many dollars to go around, and buying a new gizmo trumps buying new pants and shoes apparently. We’d note a comment that Retail Metrics had on business at the Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) retail store though: “Even the Apple Store was significantly slower than we witnessed last year at this time.”

Retail Metrics is estimating that same-store sales in December will be up only about 2.9% compared with last December. Excluding drug store sales, the increase will be 2.2%. Of 69 retailers tracked by Retail Metrics, 51 lowered their fourth quarter sales forecasts when they reported third quarter earnings, compared with just 3 forecasting year-over-year increases. That is not an encouraging signal either for holiday sales or full-quarter sales.

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