Holiday shopping got off to a flying start in the United States this weekend.

But consumers were mainly snapping up bargains, not full-priced goods, fueling retailers' expectations for a solid -- not spectacular -- Christmas.

The National Retail Federation, the leading retail industry group, said 133 million Americans from a population of 291 million hit the stores over Thanksgiving weekend, the official start to the holiday season, spending $22.8 billion.

The NRF, in its first survey of this kind for one of the year's biggest shopping weekends, said electronics, clothing and music were in hot demand, boosted by heavy discounting.

The NRF, like most analysts, expects lower sales growth this holiday season than last year, when Americans had banked tax rebates. With high oil prices and lingering economic uncertainties worrying some consumers, particularly lower income earners, the expectation is that shoppers will keep a close watch on their wallets.

"We got a strong weekend, but this is a marathon, and the weeks before and after Christmas will be key for retailers," said NRF Vice President Scott Krugman.

The weekend, also known as Black Friday weekend as it used to be the time that retailers moved into profit for the year, is widely used as an indicator of spending for the holiday season, when a quarter of annual retail sales are rung up.

MasterCard said its transactions were up 9.3 percent over the weekend from a year ago, while Visa USA's SpendTrak report said spending on its cards rose 14.3 percent.

ShopperTrak data showed sales on Black Friday -- the biggest shopping day of 2003 -- up 10.8 percent at $8 billion.

Forecasts for sales growth this holiday season vary between 3 percent and 5 percent.

The NRF expects sales to rise 4.5 percent to $220 billion, compared with last year's increase of 5.1 percent.

WAL-MART DAMPENS HOLIDAY SPIRITS

But despite the strong numbers, enthusiasm about the rest of the holiday was dampened by No. 1 retailer Wal-Mart Stores Inc. cutting its November sales forecast, saying traffic was down as it was not offering such big discounts.

This could increase many analysts' fears that high oil prices, which push up heating bills and gasoline prices at the pump, are forcing lower-income earners to curb spending with Christmas just four weeks away.

The NRF survey, conducted by BIGresearch, found most shoppers -- 61.8 percent -- headed to discount stores over Thanksgiving weekend, while 44.3 percent shopped in department stores and 40.5 percent in specialty stores.

"Traffic levels on Black Friday seemed to be reasonably strong, but it looks like customers were sticking to sale items," said Darrell Rigby, retail analyst at Bain & Co.

A clearer picture of Thanksgiving weekend will emerge on Thursday, Dec. 2, when retailers release November sales data.

But Wal-Mart, in a weekly sales call on Saturday, said sales at its U.S. stores open at least a year had failed to rise an expected 2 percent to 4 percent in November and were now forecast to have edged up just 0.7 percent from a year ago.

Phil Rist, a vice president at BIGresearch, said high energy costs posed a unique challenge this holiday season, although higher income earners would not be affected. He cited healthy forecasts for sales of luxury and upscale goods.

"Discounters' core shoppers have less discretionary income and are the most likely to be affected by higher gas prices." Rist said in a statement.

In addition to Thursday's retail sales data, Wall Street will closely watch jobs figures due on Friday.

Economists polled by Reuters expect non-farm payrolls to have added 180,000 jobs in November, compared with the surprisingly big gain of 337,000 in October.