The cosmetics floor at Bloomingdale’s SoHo was practically vacant yesterday morning at 11:20 a.m., save for a few sales associates positioned behind makeup displays.

Simeon Kline and Amber Petree, who staff the Stila counter, said that on a normal morning, they usually have sold about $1,000 worth of products like shimmer powder and lip glaze by then. But yesterday, more than an hour into the first workday of the transit strike, they hadn’t made a single sale.

“This is the worst week in the entire year for this to happen for retail,” Ms. Petree said. “This is our moneymaking week.”

Around the city, many businesses – particularly retail stores, restaurants, small companies, and tourism-related enterprises – struggled yesterday under the heavy weight of the transit strike, which analysts say could cripple the city economy in this crucial shopping week before Christmas.

New Yorkers making last minute holiday purchases weren’t the only people missing from the city’s shops. Many tourists have canceled trips to New York, according to Cristyne Nicholas, the president of the city’s tourism board, NYC & Company.

“It’s terrible. We’re seeing cancellations, major cancellations,” she said, adding that even the tourists who are in the city have been buying less. “They’re not shopping as much as they’d like to because they don’t want to schlep the packages back to the hotel if they can’t get a cab or a bus or the subway,” she explained.

Ms. Nicholas added that people who work in New York and are filling up hotel vacancies left by fleeing tourists might keep the beds full, but they are not spending money on meals, shops, and spa treatments like tourists would.

What’s more, many of the people who work at city businesses, who typically commute long distances on public transportation, had trouble getting to work.

Many small businesses, including newsstands, takeout restaurants, and delis, remained padlocked shut for the entire day. Some booths at the Christmas fair at Union Square also were closed yesterday, just five days before Christmas.

“From what we have been able to learn, the economic consequences of the strike range from severe to devastating, depending on the business,” Mayor Bloomberg told reporters yesterday. “Retail, especially in Lower Manhattan, has been hit the hardest. Hundreds of stores haven’t been able to open, and some that did had practically no business. Along one stretch of Eighth Avenue, 40% of the stores weren’t even open.”

The mayor also said the city had received “alarming reports” from the food service industry that deliveries were not being made. At MarkJoseph Steakhouse on Water Street, for example, deliveries that typically arrive at 7 a.m. only started trickling in after 1 p.m., according to a hostess, Ashley Herriman.

When the buses and subways ground to a halt, many banks and other large corporations were ready with plans. Some had hired buses to pick up workers at transportation hubs and carry them to offices in Midtown and Lower Manhattan. Others rented hotel rooms so that workers wouldn’t be stranded on the wrong side of police checkpoints in the event of a strike.

The president of the Partnership for New York City, Kathryn Wylde, said that while major employers had the “resources and wherewithal” to allow telecommuting and to provide for transportation or hotels, many workers, especially at small firms, had to fend for themselves.

The deputy city comptroller for budget, Marcia Van Wagner, estimated that the first day of the strike would cost the city’s businesses $400 million in revenues. “Most people are going to be affected by this because public transportation is such a key factor in how the city’s economy works, how people get around, how people during the day are able to get to meetings,” she said.

Ms. Van Wagner said she hopes the strike is a “bad few days,” but added: “I think if we go into January – Lord help us if we go into January – the costs will start to mount.”

Workers yesterday remained positive but hoped for a quick resolution to the contract dispute.

The general manager of Dean & DeLuca on Broadway and Prince Street, Michael Shane, called the strike “ridiculous” and said that if the contract dispute is not resolved soon, the transit workers should be fired.

He said about 20% of his employees were running late, even though he had mapped out the city, rented cars, and organized employee carpools. That means the employees, who are paid by the hour, earn less. He also said fewer people were shopping. “It’ll be a huge impact,” he said. “You’ll only get local people. You won’t get tourists.”

One industry that was not hurting yesterday was bicycle stores, which were selling tires and other accessories to people commuting on two wheels.

“We’re busy,” a salesman at Toga Bike Shop said when asked if he could talk about the strike. “Can this be quick?”