Windows at Kate Spade stores trumpet 75% off deals (and a plea to "Please pop in") and Kenneth Cole's posters joke that sales were "a free for all (more or less)."

These are among the signs of the times reported by retail analyst Amy Noblin of Pali Capital, who also says in a recent report* that, on some days in the second week of January, returns outweighed sales at some stores.

While January is typically a month for clearance sales and traffic traditionally subsides following the holiday week, the tone of retail marketing is markedly different this year, Ms. Noblin says. "What's surprising is how blatantly desperate retailers are with respect to driving traffic into their stores," she says.

"Now that the traffic has gone away from the mall, what's the catalyst to get people back in the mall for fall clearance or spring merchandise?," Ms. Noblin says. "What we've been able to see throughout the second half of the year is that the peaks with respect to traffic and spending are becoming very pronounced. We see very few catalysts on the spring calendar to drive traffic to the malls."