People look at the holiday decor in the windows of the Country Store on Main Street in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, on December 13, 2020.
Joseph Prezioso | AFP | Getty Images
According to a new survey, diligence still abounds this holiday season, although retailers ranging from Target to Best Buy are trying to encourage consumers to buy earlier than ever to avoid crowded stores and overdue stores in the last days before Christmas.
More than 150 million Americans are expected to buy last Saturday before Christmas, just over 147.8 million in 2019, according to a survey released Thursday by the National Retail Federation. NRF surveyed 8,092 consumers from November 25 to December 4, in collaboration with Prosper Insights & Analytics.
The number of shoppers scheduled for the day, known as “Super Saturday,” includes those who plan to shop at stores and shop online, NRF said. The trading group said this is the second highest figure reported since NRF began tracking Super Saturday statistics in 2016. Last year, Super Saturday fell just four days before Christmas, but this year it is almost a week before the holidays.
In their survey it was also found that of the people who plan to buy this year’s Super Saturday, 42% plan to do so only online, avoiding shopping malls and crowded stores.
The fact that a record number of American consumers are using next weekend to finish buying gifts will put additional pressure on retailers and shipping companies, including UPS and FedEx, which have already been strained by the huge amount of online orders during the pandemic. Some industry experts have coined the pressures the industry is facing this holiday season as a ‘shipageddon’.
This past Tuesday also marked the official cut in the U.S. for standard ground shipping, to receive items on Dec. 24 for UPS, FedEx and the U.S. Postal Service. From here, delivery surcharges skyrocket for fast delivery. And even then, shoppers who plan to shop online in the next few days run the risk of their items not arriving on time, as promised, due to the high volumes.
All in all, up to 7 million packages a day can be delayed from Thanksgiving Day to Christmas, according to Satish Jindel, president of ShipMatrix, a company that analyzes shipping package data.
And if shoppers head to the stores this weekend, they should wait in line. Many retailers have capacity restrictions due to the pandemic.
Even with a few extra days between this year’s super Saturday and Christmas, some consumers still won’t finish shopping for friends and family on time, which will come in the new year.
66% of holiday shoppers will likely buy in the week immediately following Christmas, NRF found. Those people cited the typical large amount of post-holiday deals and that they wanted to use their gift cards as reasons to do so.
Overall, this holiday season, which NRF defines as from November 1 to December 31, the retail group predicts that retail sales will increase between 3.6% and 5.2% from 2019 levels , which will total between $ 755.36 billion and $ 766.7 billion.
Read the full version of NRF’s Super Saturday here.