Strong Shopping Expected after Christmas

People will be shopping in force online and in-person on “Super Saturday,” according to the National Retail Federation (NRF), which falls on December 17. And while the window is closing for online sellers to fulfill items in time to Christmas gift-givers, December 25 does not mark the end of the busy shopping period.

NRF keeps tabs on shopping trends with its research partner, Prosper Insights & Analytics and published its latest report on Tuesday (December 13). Prosper Executive Vice President of Strategy Phil Rist said, “Strong shopping is expected after Christmas as holiday shoppers aim to take advantage of retailers’ sales and promotions. In the week following Christmas Day, we expect to see consumers maximize holiday sales and promotions, use gift cards and return or exchange unwanted gifts.”

As for Super Saturday, NRF and Prosper said it anticipates 158.5 million people to be shopping that day: 44.1 million (28%) plan to shop only in stores; 42.2 million (27%) plan to shop only online; and 72.2 million (46%) plan to shop both in stores and online.

NRF defines the holiday season as November 1 through December 31 and has forecast that retail sales will grow between 6% and 8% over 2021 to between $942.6 billion and $960.4 billion.

Its survey of 7,857 consumers was conducted December 1 – 7 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.1 percentage points – see more details on the NRF website.

Ina Steiner

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 - present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 - present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.