Late holiday retail sales up; strong season seen. (Originated from Knight-Ridder Financial News)

    CHICAGO _ The sales pace picked up for many retailers in the week before Christmas, with continuing strength seen in consumer electronics and home-related items, retailers said Tuesday. 
    Overall sales should be relatively strong, although a heavy reliance on promotions _ sales, markdowns and the like _ will be hard on corporate profit margins, analysts said. 
    ``In general, sales will probably turn out to be OK, but we saw lots of promotions and markdowns, more than last year,'' said Karen Sack, a retailing analyst at Standard & Poor's in New York. 
    Heading into Christmas, stores were ``very price-promotional. The sense was people were going to wait until the last minute, and they did,'' she said. 
    The National Retail Federation does not yet have overall sales figures for the…