Retailers bet on last-minute pre-Christmas shopping boost on Super Saturday
Customer Sheri Landau, of Port Washington, buys merchandise from salesperson Ashley Wasser, of Merrick, at Clothes Horse, a women's apparel and accessories store in Albertson. Credit: Debbie Egan-Chin
Gloria Redden has been taking a wait-and-see approach to holiday shopping this year.
Prices “are sky high. I've been waiting for things to go on sale before I purchase,” said the Valley Stream retiree, 72.
Even for her family's Christmas meal, she held out until Monday when she could catch prime rib on sale.
Retailers are hoping that Redden and other cautious consumers who’ve delayed their holiday shopping, awaiting discounts, will make up for lost time this weekend. The Saturday before Christmas, referred to as Super Saturday, is typically the second-biggest day for in-store shopping, after Black Friday, each year.
Super Saturday falling two days before Christmas — it hasn’t happened since 2017 — will help draw more consumers to stores for last-minute shopping this weekend, according to the National Retail Federation, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group.
This year, 141.9 million consumers plan to shop on Saturday, up 12.5% from the 126.1 million who planned to do so in 2017, according to estimates based on the federation’s survey of 7,973 adults in early December.
But this year's projected number is a 10.5% drop from the record 158.5 million who said they planned to shop on Super Saturday last year, which was the highest number since the federation began tracking the data in 2016, the group said.
Remaining cautious
Following a decline in October, retail sales grew modestly in November surprising economists who had been predicting a spending pullback by consumers worried about the economy.
Led mostly by spending increases at sporting goods and hobby stores, online retailers and restaurants, retail sales in November grew 4.1% to $705.7 billion compared with a year earlier and 0.3% compared with October, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Retailers are hoping that last-minute splurges will help push December to more growth, but economists and retail experts remain cautious.
Many consumers are price-sensitive and looking for deals, amid concerns about the student loan repayment moratorium ending last September, high interest rates and inflation, even though inflation rates have fallen since last year, retail experts said.
Other factors are also at play this year, including a lack of a sense of urgency by consumers, global political distractions and mild weather that is depressing demand for heavy winter clothing, said Marshal Cohen, chief retail analyst based in the Port Washington office of Circana, a Chicago-based consumer research firm.
Holiday shopping “is not like this six-week event that it used to be. So, it now comes down to, this better be a really great Saturday and a really great week leading up to Christmas … Otherwise, it’s going to be a ho-hum holiday,” he said.
Women’s clothing and accessories retailer Clothes Horse, which has three stores on Long Island and one in Brooklyn, is expecting a strong turnout of last-minute shoppers this weekend, particularly for buyers of gift cards and little “tchotchkes,” said manager Sam Wasser, whose family owns the chain.
But shoppers’ buying patterns this holiday season have been different, he said.
“I’m seeing a lot more people being conservative, I would say. A lot of our more affordable goods are being sold. And people … they still want to look trendy and fashionable, but those high-ticket items and brand names, those haven’t been the hottest sellers,” he said.
Retail groups have projected a sales slowdown this holiday season.
Coresight Research is forecasting nominal retail sales growth during the quarter, October to December, of between 3.0% and 3.5%, compared with the same period last year. But adjusted for inflation, the expected growth will be 1% to 1.5%, and most of that will be driven by online spending, according to the Manhattan-based retail analysis provider.
In another forecast, holiday spending is expected to grow between 3% and 4% to between $957.3 billion and $966.6 billion, according to the National Retail Federation, but its numbers are not adjusted for inflation. That spending increase is consistent with the average annual holiday spending increase of 3.6% from 2010 to 2019, the federation said.
Tory N. Parrish covers retail and small business for Newsday. She has worked at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Observer-Dispatch in Utica, N.Y.
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