Shoppers were tough customers during the holiday weekend, coming out in force but spending less than last year. Estimated sales nationwide of $57.4 billion during the four-day Thanksgiving weekend were down 2.7 percent from a year ago — marking the first decline for a Black Friday weekend since 2009.

“The early results from the start of the holiday shopping season are mildly disappointing,” said David Joy, chief market strategist for Ameriprise Financial.

Analysts said the results reflect queasy consumer confidence, with only modest gains this year in disposable income and job growth.

On the plus side for consumers, the downturn in holiday-weekend sales suggests that retailers likely will extend the deep discounts that already have been hurting their profit margins.

“Retailers didn’t get what they wanted from Black Friday, and they will need to make it up in the next three weeks,” said Poonam Goyal, an analyst for Bloomberg Industries.

More shoppers shopped during the weekend — 141 million this year compared with 139 million last year — but per-person spending was down, according to a survey from Prosper Insight & Analytics and the National Retail Federation.

Surveyed consumers spent an average of $407 from Thursday through Sunday, down from last year’s $424, a decline of 4 percent.

Shoppers who visited brick-and-mortar stores reduced spending by an estimated 8.7 percent, while per-capita online spending increased by 7.2 percent from the same period last year.

The survey did not include projections for so-called Cyber Monday sales. Research firm comScore forecast Cyber Monday sales of $2 billion, up from about $1.47 billion last year.

Sales were brisk at Greenwood Village-based eBags .com. The online retailer reported that as of midafternoon Monday, 125,000 shoppers had visited its website and sales were running 21 percent higher than on Cyber Monday last year.

The number of online visitors who ended up making purchases, instead of just browsing, also increased this year for eBags.

“Conversion rates are higher than last year, which indicates shoppers like the deals that they are seeing,” said Peter Cobb, co-founder and executive vice president.

Analysts concluded that the trend toward major retailers opening on Thanksgiving night brought in shoppers but probably at the expense of Black Friday sales.

“Those retailers which opened early on Thursday evening and delivered pronounced messages across various media platforms were the most successful retailers over the weekend,” said retail analyst Sam Poser of Sterne Agee. “Pricing messages appeared to be most successful at Walmart, Best Buy and Macy’s.”

Even if Thanksgiving night sales didn’t produce an overall gain in weekend retail performance, the results suggest that the Thursday evening phenomenon will become permanent, said retail consultant Marshal Cohen of NPD Group.

“Don’t expect retailers to bail out on the new tradition of selling on Thanksgiving,” he said. “With this year’s solid sales performance, I anticipate Thanksgiving store hours are here to stay.”

Steve Raabe: 303-954-1948, sraabe@denverpost.com or twitter.com/steveraabedp

Bloomberg News contributed to this report.