Photos by Jeanna Duerscherl | The Roanoke Times

Betty Saul sifts through the sweaters Thursday at J.C. Penney at Tanglewood Mall. Among the deals that greeted her: Buy one sweater, get a second for 88 cents.

What's on sale?

A sampling of cold weather clothing sales across the Roanoke Valley

• Fashion Bug (Towne Square Shopping Center): 30 percent off sweaters
• New York & Co. (Valley View Mall): buy one sweater, get the other 50 percent off
• J.C. Penney (Valley View and Tanglewood malls): 55 percent off men's leather coats
• J.C. Penney (Valley View and Tanglewood malls): 25 percent off knit gloves
• Old Navy (Valley View Mall): $9.97 women's sweaters

Betty Saul shopped with a sense of urgency for winter clothes on Thursday because, she said, "The weather changed." But she needn't have been in a rush. Good deals on snug duds aren't going away with the end of the sweaty season.

Sure, sales on coats and sweaters were made to seem special and oh-so temporary back in August when retailers started slashing prices by 40 percent to 50 percent. But as the short-sleeve and even sleeveless temperatures persisted through September and early October, prices stayed low to get consumers' attention. Now they're noticing a hint of fall, but the deals are far from disappearing.

Saul, from Fancy Gap, experienced a thrill -- the kind that bargain-hunters get when they think they're getting a steal. She sifted through stacks of sweaters in J.C. Penney at Tanglewood Mall. The deal: buy one, get a second one for 88 cents.

Retailers may have little choice but to keep such prices commonplace. That's because lackluster September sales figures released Thursday by a host of national retailers, including Limited Brands and Target, put them in scramble mode to make up lost revenue.

In August, the frost-fighting garb hung beside the last of this year's bathing suits. Now the racks of coats are attaining the look the retailers dread: permanence.

Thus the low prices are taking on an enduring quality, too. And retailers say openly that the discounts aren't done with. It's too late for them to turn back, and many already have promotions scheduled for several months out.

"Our advertisements are already set through January," said Brady Haire, manager at J.C. Penney at Valley View Mall. "Our marketing is already done."

At the department store's Tanglewood Mall location, prices for long black and gray wool coats are marked down 55 percent from the original cost of $250. That brings the total to $112.50.

And although customers are showing more interest, some retailers fear they're training them to expect sales all year long.

Take Jorita Roberts of Roanoke. Oblivious to the lower temperatures on Thursday, she was just getting around to looking at winter clothes in her own good time. She shops on price, period. "A sale's a sale," she said.

She held up a long black coat Thursday at the Tanglewood J.C. Penney. The $200 garment was on sale for $90.

But she didn't buy it. After all, she reasoned, why hurry?

And she's right. It's rare for retailers to mark up the price of items that already have been discounted, unless it is a temporary promotion, said Margie Johnson, a Virginia Beach-based retail consultant.

"Most of them are working off of a plan for projected sales for the period, monthly but certainly quarterly plans," she said. "They've already missed September. It doesn't mean that people will buy twice as much in October [if they mark up the price again]. It doesn't mean that all that's going to be made up."

Retailers more often will discount items by small percentages first, such as by 20 percent. Deeper discounts of 30 percent and 40 percent often are put in place if merchandise does not sell within a period of time, Johnson said.

"That helps protect their bottom line margin," she said.

Coats at Henig Furs, a fur shop inside Belk at Valley View Mall, already are marked down 40 percent and 50 percent. Manager Carol Galvan insisted that the discounts are typical at this time of year, but shoppers have been less interested in buying fur coats lately, she said.

"People don't want to try on coats when it's 90 degrees," she said. "The weather always impacts our sales."

Henig associates also are offering coupons for 20 percent off to customers who make a purchase.

As for the rest of this year, the discounts "only get better," Galvan said.

But as fall and winter temperatures turn milder in the Roanoke Valley, retailers might do more than just mark down the price of outerwear.

Susan Fahrbach, owner of Suzabella, a women's boutique on Franklin Road in Roanoke, has changed the way that she orders fall and winter merchandise. In the past few years, she has ordered lighter-weight coats from California companies and other garments, such as quilted down vests.

She said she has noticed significant changes in how cold the winters are locally, compared with 10 years ago when she opened her store.

She described her selection of coats as "not too heavy that you'd be too constricted and warm in this climate," said Fahrbach, who grew up in Connecticut. "They're not made for downhill skiing or New England."