Believe or not I was in a mall and saw a lot of people walking around but few carrying bought merchandise. Do you think sales this year will

Not sure.. they do say people look at what they want in shops then go home and order it cheaper online... so maybe not as bad as you think? Here they said that 70% of goods bought on Black Friday would be online purchases

Overall not necessarily.  People often go to the stores to check out quality and price before making their online purchases. 
One local store owner got rather disgusted with people always  coming into her store  taking up her time then walking out saying 'I can get this same stuff a lot cheaper online '  so she began to try charging  $5.00 for people to enter her store.
Dunno how that worked out. 

Wait until just before Christmas.  That's when a lot of people do their shopping.  At the last minute.

Lots of them have merchandise hidden under their cloths. 

Oh my. I do not know. I usually make homemade gifts. It's a nice holiday tradition.