Shoppers still aren’t spending. The nation’s retailers reported another month of miserable sales Thursday, with July sales falling by around 5 percent, according to various groups that track retail spending.

One of the things that hurt retailers was that there weren’t as many sales and clearance merchandise, some analysts said. Stores ordered less inventory, so had less excess merchandise to mark down and get rid of.

But in talking to consumers at the Mall in Columbia yesterday, just about everyone was in search of a bargain. Most said they weren’t going to buy if the merchandise wasn't discounted and were planning their trips around a store’s sale.

Macy’s CEO Tony Lundgren recently told the Wall Street Journal: “The only way customers are going to start buying at full price again, (is) when they can’t have their own way on discounts. The key is to give good value, but it doesn’t have to be 80 percent off.”

The dilemma for retailers is if they sell at too steep of a discount, they don’t make a profit. If they don’t make a profit, they have to downsize and cut jobs and you know the rest.

But perhaps the clothes are marked up too high in the first place if they’re able to discount some and still make a profit.

What do you shoppers out there think? Will you even think of buying anything at full price?