Over the weekend, Target went into damage-control, attempting to lure customers back into its retail stores by offering a 10% discount to everyone — not just the 40 million customers whose credit card numbers were stolen between late November through mid-December. But even that apparently wasn’t enough to bring customers back during the last-ditch holiday shopping weekend.

Analysts tell the Wall Street Journal that total transactions for this weekend were down about 3-4% over the same weekend last year at Target. They explain that while the 10% discount helped stanch some of the bleeding, it wasn’t enough to get sales up to where the store needed them to be.

“This is the worst possible time something like this could happen,” said one analyst. “Still, American consumers can be forgiving if you’re honest with them — and the discounts help.”

In a Consumerist.com poll last week, only about 21% of readers said they were confident shopping at Target right now, but another 50% said they would eventually return to shopping at the retailer after they feel this mess has blown over.

But even if people wanted to shop at Target, some of those whose card numbers were compromised may have had trouble, with banks like Chase and Citi putting temporary daily transaction limits and/or other restrictions on debit cards that were used at Target stores between Black Friday and Dec. 15.

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