US consumers did not turn out in force for the final shopping days before Christmas, suggesting that traditional retailers will just meet industry sales forecasts in a season marked by deep discounts and growing encroachment from online rivals led by Amazon.com Inc.
Super Saturday — the last pre-Christmas Saturday, which fell on Dec. 20 this year — failed to make up for spotty performance this season. That included a disappointing Black Friday, the day after the US Thanksgiving holiday that is typically one of the busiest shopping days of the year.
“The past weekend will not save this holiday season, but, combined with online sales, it would certainly save the year from being a dismal one,” said Craig Johnson, president of the retail and consumer product-oriented private equity fund Customer Growth Partners.
Johnson said that if sales hold up in the next few days and the week after Christmas, retailers might finish close to his company’s November and December forecast of 3.4 percent growth in store and online sales. He estimates that Super Saturday weekend sales, which include traditional and online, rose 2.5 percent to US$42 billion this year.
The US National Retail Federation, the leading industry trade body, forecast a 4.1 percent rise in holiday sales this year, including online and store sales. The federation is hoping to meet its expectations amid falling gasoline prices, lower US unemployment and consumer spending that showed signs of increasing during the first two weeks of this month.
Promotions heated up in the past five days, but that did not boost store traffic materially, FTI Consulting senior managing director Keith Jelinek said.
Most retailers offered an additional 20 to 30 percent off on top of 30 to 40 percent discounts on a wide range of products, reporters found during a series of visits to three dozen stores in Chicago over the weekend.
Best-sellers during the season included Apple Inc’s iPhone 6, toys based on the Walt Disney Co animated movie Frozen and winter clothing such as coats from retailers like Macy’s Inc after a cold spell last month.
Home appliances, including mixers, coffee makers and food processors from chains like Home Depot Inc, Lowe’s Companies Inc, JC Penney and Co Inc and Target Corp, were also particularly popular, industry watchers said.
Super Saturday sales rose 0.5 percent to US$9.15 billion from US$9.1 billion a year ago, according to early estimates by ShopperTrak, which surveys spending at brick-and-mortar stores.
This fell short of the firm’s US$10 billion sales forecast for the day, founder Bill Martin told reporters.
Analytics firm RetailNext, which tracks specialty stores and large footprint retailers, said sales dropped 8.9 percent over the weekend versus a year ago and store traffic dipped 10.2 percent. However, customers who did hit the stores spent more. Specialty stores in the US include chains like Best Buy Co Inc and large footprint retailers include Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Target.
“Even with this drop in growth, Super Saturday was still better compared to Black Friday,” RetailNext vice president of retail consulting Shelley Kohan said. “It generated a tad more in terms of sales on slightly less traffic.”
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