Millions of shoppers race to malls across the US to take advantage of the last Saturday, called “Super Saturday”, for discounts and last-minute gifts. Record sales were registered around the country.
Customer Growth Partners (CGP) estimates a record total of $930 billion in sales for the November-December holiday shopping period, up by 2.4 percent from 2022’s $908 billion. It highlighted that record sales were paced by a stunning $47 billion in sales on Super Saturday – December 23, well ahead of the $42.6 billion in sales on Black Friday.
Craig Johnson, CGP president, said consumers are returning to more normalized spending patterns with considered purchasing instead of the more impulse-driven shopping seen in the post-COVID peak. “At the same time, households continue to migrate from goods purchases to services such as restaurants, hospitality and entertainment.
“With cautionary shoppers buying closer to need, the winter gear saw sell-through in most of the season until well into December, when the heavy winter inventories required deeper discounting on these goods to clear through the dated product, reducing margins for department and specialty stores that feature winter assortments.”
Phil Rist, Prosper Insights & Analytics executive vice president of strategy, said 2023’s Super Saturday is truly aligned for last-minute shoppers. He believes in-store shopping is the preference for those seeking holiday gifts, driven by fears that gifts won’t arrive on time if purchased online.
The National Retail Federation survey states that Americans are expected to shop through the end of December and into early January. Around 70 percent of consumers plan to shop in the week following Christmas, mainly to take advantage of the holiday sales and promotions.
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