Black Friday is still six days away, but you wouldn't know it from the discounts in Sacramento-area malls this week.

With some forecasts predicting the sharpest downturn in holiday spending since the 1970s, retailers have turned early to the big sales usually reserved for the day after Thanksgiving.

JCPenney, Macy's, Toys R Us and Sears – to name a few – are advertising price cuts of 50 percent and more. At Sunrise Mall in Citrus Heights and Sacramento's Westfield Downtown Plaza on Friday, seemingly every store was offering at least 25 percent off, with "buy one, get one" signs in dozens of windows.

Several shoppers Friday said they weren't waiting to tie up their Christmas shopping.

"I've taken advantage of the sales already. I'm already done," said Nelwin Walker of Antelope as she walked out of the Downtown Plaza Macy's.

Many stores need a wave of shoppers like Walker to survive into 2009. Because of the credit crunch, troubled retailers have been unable to borrow money. That leaves them only one way to raise cash: sell more stuff – quick.

This season's pre-Thanksgiving discounts are unprecedented, said Dan de Grandpre, chief executive of dealnews.com, which monitors discounts at retailers nationwide. But the big early markdowns could rob Black Friday of some of its traditional oomph, de Grandpre said.

Many post-Thanksgiving deals haven't been made public yet. But de Grandpre said the ones that have been released are only marginally better than what's already being offered.

"It kind of dilutes Black Friday," he said.

At KB Toys at Sunrise Mall, the pre-Black Friday discount – buy three items, get one free – is billed as a "Stockup Sale." Throughout the store, yellow and orange signs shout "Super Toys! Super Values! Super Prices!"

At Forever 21 in Westfield Downtown Plaza, dance music throbbed as shoppers scoured the racks for the store's "Fabulous Finds": jackets at $7.50 and up; jeans as low as $8.50.

The prices could get even better as the holiday season wears on, said Burt P. Flickinger III, managing director of Strategic Resource Group, a retail consulting firm in New York.

"Even with the desperation discounting already, the shoppers who will save the most will do it by waiting until Sunday, December 21, when it reaches its peak," he said.

Those late bargain-hunters, however, may find the shelves bare of popular presents, several experts said, because cash-strapped stores are stocking less merchandise than usual.

Holiday sales account for about 20 percent of the retail industry's annual revenue. The weekend of Black Friday – a phrase coined for the day after Thanksgiving when retailers traditionally go from the "red" to profitable "black" – accounts for around 9 percent of holiday sales.

Sales projections vary widely for this year's Black Friday, and for the holiday season as a whole.

The National Retail Federation predicts a 2.2 percent sales increase over last year, compared with a 4.4 year-over-year average annual increase over the last decade.

On the other hand, Flickinger, the retail consultant, anticipates sales to be down 3 percent on Black Friday and 4.7 to 6.5 percent for the holiday season.

A firm tally of retailers' holiday revenue won't be available until February, when the U.S. Commerce Department releases sales figures.

Well before then, however, the number of bankruptcy filings will signal whether shoppers have come to the rescue of retailers.

"Frankly, I don't see their prayers being answered," said Garrick Brown, research director in the Sacramento office of commercial real estate broker Colliers International. He predicts 10 to 15 percent of all retail stores in the country will close next year, more than twice the typical rate.

"We're pretty much expecting a bloodbath," he said.

The low end of the retail market appears to be on the best financial footing this year. Wal-Mart and Costco are both notching strong sales. Secondhand stores are also doing well.

On a bench inside the Downtown Plaza mall Friday, Verge Jones of Galt and friend Rebecca Wyner of Uvalde, Texas, were going through several bags of cookware they'd just bought at the big Macy's sale.

On Black Friday, though, they'll be looking for even bigger savings – at the Goodwill Outlet on Franklin Boulevard in south Sacramento.

"It is heaven!" Wyner said, looking skyward. "It's a lot of work, a lot of digging, but it's a lot of fun. And you can cure your Macy's blues with $10."

Call The Bee's Jim Downing, (916) 321-1065.