The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday edition that shoppers emerged Thursday from holiday festivities in ever smaller crowds for a sales holiday increasingly diluted by month-long promotions. The Globe's Mariya Postelnyak writes that while some stores across Canada continued to draw in crowds -- police closed part of a highway around Toronto Premium Outlets -- analysts say this Boxing Day revealed lukewarm optimism from retailers and cautious spending on the part of consumers. Faced with higher costs and challenges brought on by the GST holiday, retailers were less likely to offer steep savings. Retail strategist Lisa Hutcheson said recent earnings announcements suggested retailers were already cautious going into the fourth quarter, packing less inventory that they would need to get rid of through sales ahead of the season's end. "We're not seeing as deep discounts because they don't have the same amount of inventory," she said. Maria Solovieva, an economist at TD Bank, said consumers are still recovering from price shocks compared with several years ago. "What we're seeing right now is a little better sentiment than earlier in the year, but that's not to say that consumers aren't still very cautious," she said.