Lesser known than its headline-grabbing cousins Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the last Saturday before Christmas Eve is nevertheless a huge holiday shopping day and has earned the moniker Super Saturday because of its importance to U.S. retailers.
The more cynical alternative handle for this particular day of retail mayhem, one aiming to reflect the vibe of shoppers that left their lists languish, is Panic Saturday.
This year’s Super Saturday saw massive numbers of shoppers active in both the real world and digital ether, though the volumes were flat or a bit down when compared to the same day last year or the pre-pandemic edition of 2019.
While the National Retail Foundation predicted Super Saturday would see 158 million people engaging in some version of shopping activity, a post-facto survey conducted by the International Council of Shopping Centers estimated the number came in closer to 189 million on Dec. 17.
And a surprisingly large slice of those shoppers, about 70%, did their shopping in person rather than online.
“Shoppers frequented stores on Super Saturday, aiming to get the best deals and making sure they get their gifts on time before the holidays,” Tom McGee, president and chief executive officer of the ICSC, said in a note accompanying survey results. “While inflation and price concerns are still impacting where and how consumers buy gifts, they are still spending, particularly at physical stores.
“We expect last-minute shopping to continue this week and anticipate a strong conclusion to the holiday season.”
Other highlights from the ICSC survey include:
- Overall, 90% of shoppers said inflation impacted their shopping on Super Saturday.
- Shoppers identified the lowest prices (51%), in-stock products (46%), and ease of checkout (36%) as the primary factors in choosing where to shop.
- Half of shoppers took advantage of buying online and picking up in-store.
- A majority (54%) of shoppers noted they spent more than they planned.
- A majority (56%) spent using debit cards, 47% used credit cards, and 46% used cash.
Industry analysts say the calendar played a role in how the Super Saturday shopping volumes played out this year, falling eight days before Christmas. But the same factors are also likely to provide an unusual boost for retailers ahead of the holiday, with a “bonus” Saturday of shopping falling on Christmas Eve.
Shopping traffic at brick-and-mortar stores may have gotten a boost on this year’s Super Saturday thanks to consumer worries that online purchases may not make it in time for gift exchanges, according to Peter McCall, senior manager of retail consulting, Sensormatic Solutions.
“For the last five years, Super Saturday is the second busiest shopping day in the U.S., falling only behind Black Friday,” McCall told The Associated Press. “There were only three Saturdays in December leading up to Christmas Day this year. As we expected, Super Saturday remains a big part of consumers’ holiday shopping plans to grab last-minute items with supply chain issues delaying the arrival of online orders in time for holiday celebrations.”
Overall, economists are expecting the 2022 holiday shopping season to see some growth but not at nearly the same pace of the last few years.
Wells Fargo economist Shannon Seery, co-author of the bank’s holiday spending report released in October, said the trend of strong consumer spending will carry into the 2022 holiday season and overall sales will be up over 2021. But Seery noted that after adjusting for inflationary increases, that bump will be considerably smaller than the record-setting growth U.S. retailers have seen the previous two years.
“We expect to see a 6% annual gain in holiday spending,” Seery said. “But a lot of that will be driven by price increases. The holiday sales increases, in real gains, will be closer to 2%.”
Seery and her co-authors found that, looking back over the past 28 years, the two biggest annual increases in holiday sales have occurred in each of the past two years.
Adobe Digital Insights also dropped a holiday shopping forecasts report in October, but it’s one that focused on forecasting holiday online spending.
Adobe analysts predict growth for online retail sales over the holiday season will slow considerably as overall inflation curbs consumer spending capacity. They predict holiday online sales will move up 2.5% this year and hit nearly $210 billion, but noted earlier discounts and more constrained spending could also lead to a slight drop, around 2%, compared to 2021 online spending for the end-of-year holidays.
A pre-holiday poll conducted by Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics found most Utahns are planning on spending about the same or more on holiday gifts as they did last year, even as most are also concerned about inflation and the potential for a looming recession.
The statewide poll of 801 registered Utah voters found 43% of respondents plan to spend about what they did last year on holiday gifts, and 11% will be upping their holiday budgets. Budget decreases are in store for 44% of poll participants, and 2% said they were undecided or didn’t know how their holiday shopping budgets would change.
The survey was conducted by Dan Jones and Associates on Oct. 3-6 and the results come with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.46 percentage points.