With Christmas less than a week away, local retailers are wondering if Santa is going to make an appearance.

Sales so far this holiday season appear to disappointing, with retailers working hard to gain shopper traffic by cutting prices.

Now comes the final push of the season, with shoppers hoping that stores will chop prices further, and shop owners hoping to end the holidays with a bang.

"My merchants are optimistic by nature," said Fred Paine, general manager of Pearlridge Center. "They're saying the big push will be coming at the end of this week and next week."

Retailers are keeping their fingers crossed in what nationally has been a dreary shopping sea son. Consumers are spending less because of worries about a recession and crisis gripping investment markets. The International Council of Shopping Centers, a much-quoted New York-based retail trade group, projects sales at stores open at least a year will fall as much as 1 percent during the final two months of the year, the largest decline since 1969 when it began tracking the purchases.

Even online retail spending, which a few years ago was growing at a double-digit clip, appears to be having a dour year, with holiday sales little changed from last year.

Locally, shopping center operators said there's been plenty of window shopping, but that people haven't been filling bags with purchases the way they had in past years. At Pearlridge, rides on a toy train have jumped compared with last year, as have photographs taken with Santa. But some retailers there report sales being off 10 percent to 15 percent.

"We see a lot of people shopping, it's just with the local economy and retailers offering so many discounts that they're holding off till the last minute," said Matthew Derby, director of tourism and public relations at Ala Moana Center, which at 2.1 million square feet is the world's largest open-air shopping center.

"We're seeing purchases pick up as we speak."

Indeed, there are Christmas-time deals that haven't been seen in years.

On Wednesday and yesterday Macy's offered early morning shoppers 60 percent off original prices on women's shoes and dresses, while Sports Authority sliced prices by half on certain mountain bikes.

Wet Okole Hawaii had a 20 percent-off anniversary sale, with discounts of up to 50 percent on some merchandise. Some stores started discounting Christmas ornaments by 50 percent weeks before Christmas, something they typically do after Dec. 25.

"This has been a very tough year for retailers," said Stephany Sofos, a retail consultant.

"Obviously consumers are very nervous about the economy. So in order to pull that consumer out, you have to be offering something that makes them want to buy."

Sofos has seen discounts as high as 90 percent recently, though it was on merchandise that a store wanted to rid itself of.

At Ala Moana, Derby said some stores are discounting items that are never on sale during Christmas and some stores are offering in-store specials that the store manager decided on at the last minute.

He said Banana Republic had a one-day sale featuring 40 percent off on items in the store.

"We're seeing some amazing deals that we haven't seen in years previous," noted Derby, who said sales at Ala Moana should end the year even with 2007.

"It's great for shoppers."

BEST FOR LAST

But the big question now is whether retailers have saved the best for last as they look to unload inventory and whether the tepid season will turn joyous for stores.

An International Council of Shopping Centers survey found about one-third of eleventh-hour shoppers said they wait because they expect more discounts. A late shopping surge this year may also be driven by a shorter season — last year there were 32 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, this year there are 27.

Opinions vary on whether major discounts are likely with some saying there could be more price cuts coming and others saying retailers can't be more aggressive with discounts than they have been.

"What's going to happen is as it gets closer to Christmas, retailers will start to discount more and more and consumers will buy, buy, buy," Sofos said.

"A lot of people have walked around and seen what's out there and are waiting to the very end to see if retailers discount."

Paine said merchants have already heavily discounted items and may not be able to cut much more. At the same time, some retailers say people are in wait-and-see mode."

"Maybe it's a game of chicken."

In any event, the Saturday before Christmas is usually one of the busiest shopping days of the year, if not the busiest. Expect stores to be crowded.

"I think this weekend you'll see some pretty heavy Christmas shopping," Sofos said.

"That's when retailers and consumers have no choice — they have to go. Both will pull their triggers."