'Super Saturday' retail sales, foot traffic fall
Chicago The National Retail Sales Estimate report released Tuesday by ShopperTrak revealed that total GAFO retail sales for the last Saturday before Christmas (12/19), or Super Saturday, fell a sharp 12.6% as compared with last year, while the company’s retail traffic index reported a similar 12.4% total U.S. foot-traffic decline for the same period.
Both yearly sales and traffic fell significantly on Super Saturday as the large storm that wreaked havoc in parts of the Midwest and on the Eastern seaboard kept consumers in doors on what is traditionally the second largest spending day of the holiday season.
In all, Saturday sales accounted for $6.9 billion, as opposed to $7.9 billion last year and $8.7 billion in 2007.
Regionally, the Northeast (-17.3%) and South (-14.6%) showed the steepest Super Saturday sales declines, with the Midwest (-10.1%) and West (-7.1%) posting smaller losses.
“Mother Nature was very unkind to retailers on Saturday as the year-over-year sales decline was the largest we’ve seen since we began reporting this number in 2002,” said Bill Martin, co-founder of ShopperTrak. “We originally predicted Super Saturday would be the No. 2 sales day of the season just behind Black Friday, with the full weekend landing just ahead of Black Friday weekend as the top-performing period. But after analyzing our data following the storm, it’s fairly apparent neither will be the case.”
“Our data shows when there is a significant weather event, shoppers spend both before and after in higher numbers and we estimate that both Friday (12/18) and Sunday (12/20) posted retail sales gains in all regions of the country,” said Martin. “Additionally because there are four full shopping days leading up to Christmas this year, we anticipate the Northwest and South regions will post higher spending levels this week due to pent up demand -- boosting sales figures for the season. We’ll know next week if our original prediction of a 1.6% sales increase with a 4.2% total U.S. foot traffic decline is still intact.”
In looking at the full Super Saturday weekend (12/18 to 12/20), year-over-year retail sales slipped 2.1%, totaling $18.8 billion
Additionally, ShopperTrak reported GAFO retail sales for the week ending Dec. 19 decreased 1.2% compared with the same period in 2008, but showed an expected 20% gain versus the previous week ending Dec. 12.