Shoppers took advantage of a 50 percent off sale at Paula’s Boutique on Broad Saturday as the store was packed full of people looking for deals.

Ellen Kinnamont, shopping with her daughter Bonnie and grandson Aiden, said they came to Rome to see if they could find any good deals at stores in the area.

“The shopping is just better here,” she said. “And to be honest, I didn’t know about the sale when we came in. But we picked a good day for it.”

She said that they were buying more than enough from Paula’s looking to decrease some of their inventory before the end of the year.

Paula Conaway, owner, said the sale would continue through Dec. 31. She said the store has had hardly any re-turns for the day.

“We’ve had only four returns so far,” she said. “We had some items on sale at 50 percent off before Christmas. And all those sales were final, which might account for so few.”

Kmart was seeing a fairly regular day of sales, according to manager Mike Barger.

“In fact it may be a little light,” he said.

Barger said while the store had remained busy since open-ing at 8 a.m., he thought that a lighter than expected customer service line for sales might be attributed to smarter shopping this holiday season.

“People probably before Christmas may have been making sure they got the right gift the first time around,” he said.

Even with a shorter returns line this year, shoppers were still bringing merchandise back. Brandon and Heather Jones came with their children Trenton and Hannah to bring back clothes that were Christmas presents for their kids.

“We’re looking to get back some clothes that fit for them,” Brandon Jones said.

Johnny Shafer and his son Austin of Summerville came to Kmart with his daughter to return clothes, but stopped by the toy aisle to look at GX Racers.

“We’re hoping to find things on sale,” Shafer said.

Shoppers also headed to Mount Berry Square mall and other stores around Rome to see what bargains they could get on the day after Christmas.

Ryan Camp and Kayla Medckie were some shoppers out early at the mall, looking to find clothing and shoes on sale.

Medckie said she was surprised by the lack of crowds on Saturday morning, and she said she wasn’t planning to make any returns this year.

“We’re going to spend all her money and get the best deals we can,” Camp said.

Ann and Lee Carter were also looking for sales at the mall, and were planning purchase anything that caught their eye.

“We’re not looking for anything in particular today,” Lee Carter said. “So we’re going to get anything we run across that we might like.”

For Caleb Hefner and Kacee Smith, they came specifically for the sales, though Hefner said he might return a pair of pants he got for the holidays.

“We mostly came to shop,” he said.

Hefner was also surprised there weren’t large crowds.

“Everyone’s broke, so it’s not that surprising,” he said.