The loudly painted windows at Whitings Oak Furniture on Auburn Boulevard fairly plead for business. Inside, the store's signs boast the "lowest prices in Northern California."

Indeed, everything from beds to bar stools, armoires to armchairs are marked down by as much as 50 percent.

But on this day, the parking lot is empty. "The only thing missing is the tumbleweed," said salesman Marcus Mangham, referring to the deserted sales floor.

Mangham hopes that business will pick up soon. But Whitings' storewide sale, now 3 weeks old, has done little to move some 10,000 square feet of merchandise.

Across the country, local retailers like Mangham are worried – and with good reason. September sales reported Wednesday from key retailers nationwide showed dismal declines, in some cases in the double digits.

Heading into the crucial holiday shopping season, local retailers are working hard to lure customers by slashing prices, ramping up marketing and relying on old-fashioned word-of-mouth.

But it's hard competing against the collapsing Dow, rising unemployment and a financial crisis that appears resistent to bailouts. Anxious consumers are increasingly tight-fisted, putting off purchases and staying away from stores.

"People are just scared," said Paul Atwal, a sales associate at Aquamarine Jewelers on Marconi Avenue. "They have money, but they don't want to spend the big bucks. They say, 'I may lose my job.' "

He said the independent jewelry store recently produced a cable TV commercial in hopes of drawing more customers. Outside, a small banner announces a storewide clearance sale, an effort to liquidate existing inventory to make room for new holiday merchandise, which accounts for more than 60 percent of the store's annual sales.

But after three weeks, there have been few takers, said salesman Joshua Atkins.

"We've tried everything short of trying to drag customers in physically," Atkins said.

In a sign of tough times, he said, more people are coming in to sell their jewelry for scrap gold than buy it.

The freeze in consumer spending is widespread across every retail sector except grocery, said Mike Romano, executive vice president of SmartReply, an Irvine-based retail marketing firm.

"Department stores, home improvement centers, specialty retailers like sporting goods. When everyone's openly admitting there's a problem, guess what? There's a problem," Romano said.

The downturn has been months in the making, Romano said, foreshadowed by a lukewarm 2007 holiday season when year-over-year sales rose 4 percent. That was below the 10-year average of 4.8 percent sales growth and the slowest since a 1.3 percent increase in 2002, according to the Washington, D.C.-based National Retail Federation.

"There's a collision of forces coming together – the economy, recession – things are converging out of control of retailers," Romano said. "You can lower prices or pump more money into marketing, but everyone's freezing. People are postponing purchases as long as they can. They're not buying right now, and that spooks retailers."

To reduce costs, he said, some retailers are turning to digital marketing, such as e-mail and cell phone text messages targeted to specific customers.

Retailers are hoping the approaching holiday shopping season will post better sales than September's slump.

But that doesn't appear likely. Analysts at Deloitte Research say they anticipate the crucial November-to-January sales period will increase just 3 percent, less than last year's 3.4 percent and one of the slowest growth rates in 17 years.

Retailers who compete for sales with good customer service and lower prices will grab customers, Deloitte said in its forecast of 2008 holiday spending.

But Mangham, the furniture store salesman, wonders if it will be enough. Home sales, for example, haven't been on fire in the Sacramento area, and foreclosures have been rising.

"I hope things pick up because, broke or not, they've got to get gifts," he said. "But, if you're getting kicked out of your house, what do you need furniture for?"

Call The Bee's Darrell Smith, (916) 321-1040.