NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - A protracted work stoppage at West Coast ports could prove financially devastating for the nation's retailers as they gear up for the critical holiday sales season, industry executives and analysts said Monday.

Many retailers cleared the bulk of their holiday inventory through the ports early this year in anticipation of a lockout of union longshoremen. But it still may be hard for shoppers to find the hot toys, clothing and video games they want if merchants can't get enough goods on their shelves, analysts said.

Other store chains were simply unable to move shipments early enough and now face the possibility of a tough holiday season. Even Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, which said it had pushed the bulk of its merchandise through the ports early, said profits might be hurt by a prolonged work stoppage.

"Some who planned to have product on the shelves by Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) -- it's now stuck on the ships," said Jonathan Gold, director of international trade policy for the International Mass Retailers Association.

For each day the ports are closed, it takes seven days to get the supply chain moving again, industry watchers say. That means even if the ports, which have been closed for 10 days, re-open this week, it will take two or three months to re-establish the system's traditional flow pattern. Crane operators, trucks and other logistical components need to be reassembled and coordinated.

"It's like that old '(I Love) Lucy' episode with the chocolates. If you envision a conveyer belt across the Pacific Ocean, you can get a big, sticky, gooey mess real quick," said Craig Shearman, senior public director for government relations at the National Retail Federation. "It all just starts backing up and making a huge mess all the way back to Hong Kong."

Bertha Coombs takes a closer look at the West Coast ports lockout and its potential impact on the holiday shopping season. Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)

Already faced with a weak economy, retailers have been struggling with sluggish sales all year.

Now, with six fewer days in the holiday shopping season, the merchants also have the added headache of financing inventory brought in early to get around the port situation or scrambling to bring in merchandise now.

The lockout could also hurt profitability if retailers are forced to mark down merchandise in order to clear the shelves to make room for backed-up orders out in the harbor. But analysts said it was too early to say whether retailers would need to resort to early discounts. In fact, they could hold off discounts if they find themselves short of inventory.

"You tend to mark down stuff when you're stuck," said Bill Dreher, a retail analyst at W.R. Hambrecht & Co.

Wall Street is already anticipating a tough fourth quarter for the nation's retailers.

Analysts have already trimmed their expectations for the all-important fourth quarter, which can account for as much as half of a retailer's annual sales and profits.

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According to earnings tracker First Call, retail industry analysts now expect retail profits to grow about 16 percent profit in the fourth quarter, down from earlier forecasts of about 20 percent. That would also be much weaker than forecasts for growth of about 30 percent in the third quarter.

"There's a deep concern that if this thing goes on, a lot of Christmas merchandise hitting the docks can't be transferred," First Call's Ken Perkins said.

Retailers and shippers took heart Monday when President Bush took the first step toward intervening in the dispute by naming a board of inquiry to consider the impact to U.S. trade and the economy.

Establishing the board is a step the president must take before he can exercise powers under the seldom-used Taft-Hartley Act to seek a court order forcing a reopening of the ports for an 80-day cooling-off period. Bush could seek a court order as early as Tuesday, when the board should issue its report.

The work stoppage, which began on Sept. 27, is estimated to be costing the U.S. economy $2 billion a day.

Anticipating a lockout since July, when the port workers' contract expired, many retailers tried to get holiday-related goods through the ports early, or via other means.

"We required vendors to hold additional stock in the U.S. in the event of a strike," said Joy Harris, a spokeswoman for consumer electronics chain Best Buy Inc. (BBY: Research, Estimates). Harris added that the company planned to bring in additional product by air freight if necessary.

Tom Williams, a spokesman for Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's biggest retailer, said the bulk of its Christmas products have cleared the ports, but the impact to the overall economy could ultimately hurt the company's fourth-quarter profits.

Conversations with people who ship the goods for retailers and manufacturers suggest the outlook is even worse.

Bob Rowan, logistics manager at VF Jeanswear, which makes Wrangler, Lee and Gitano jeans, said his company faces a minimal impact for the holiday season. Be he noted that loads of spring merchandise, which hit the shelves not long after Christmas, are stuck in the ports.

"If the lockout goes on for weeks or months, many merchants will be in trouble," said Rowan. "It's a whole global transportation system. It's equivalent to shutting off some of the arteries in your body. That part dies, and when it dies, eventually it kills the adjoining part until the whole organism dies. And that can't be allowed to happen."

Toys in particular are vulnerable since they rely on "just-in-time" manufacturing. That is, goods are produced only as they are ordered. That's more cost-effective for retailers and manufacturers, but it makes it difficult to order merchandise early, as many tried to do just before the port lockout.

"Most of them tried to move their products up as early as possible. But you can't move up production in the factory for all your products. As a result, we have thousands of containers sitting out in the harbor," Dave Akers, managing director of the Toy Shippers Association, said.

Officials at Toys R Us (TOY: Research, Estimates), the nation's largest free-standing toy retailer, were not available for comment.

Though the fourth-quarter outlook remains murky at this point, it has taken a back seat to the more pressing concern, which is getting the ports reopened and getting the toys, DVD players and other items on the shelves for the holidays.

"I don't know what the final results will be in terms of profit or sales. This is a time when you're bringing your product into positioning for holiday sales and merchandising activity," said Steve Lamar, a spokesman for the American Apparel and Footwear Association. "People are just focusing all their efforts on trying to make the case to get the ports back open."