News Feature | December 29, 2016

Numbers Suggest Super Saturday Blows Past Black Friday Shopping Totals

Christine Kern

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

Black Friday Shoppers

Super Saturday is the New Black Friday

Super Saturday saw the highest traffic volumes of the season according to today’s Holiday Retail Index report from Verizon Enterprise Solutions.

Following lower YOY traffic volume during the week, the last full weekend before Christmas and Hanukkah saw the highest traffic of the season, edging out Black Friday weekend. Specifically, ecommerce traffic volume to U.S.-based retailers was up 11 percent on Saturday (Dec. 17) and 16 percent on Sunday (Dec. 18) from these same days last year. Peak ecommerce volume also spiked – up by 34 percent on Saturday and 37 percent on Sunday – also posting some of the highest numbers of the season.  

Michele Dupré, group vice president for retail, distribution and hospitality with Verizon Enterprise Solutions, shared the following analysis of the findings: “Frigid temperatures, red hot deals and final standard shipping deadlines created a perfect ecommerce storm as consumers were feeling the heat to wrap up their shopping. It’s far from over, as incentives abound along with guaranteed delivery promises.”

The NRF also forecast that Super Saturday would be huge this year, projecting 156 million shoppers would be taking advantage of the sales to complete their holiday gift list. For the first time this year, more surveyed shoppers said they planned to shop on Super Saturday than those who said they planned to shop over Thanksgiving Weekend.

“While many consumers got a head start with holiday shopping by taking advantage of extraordinary sales over Thanksgiving weekend, more shopping and great deals are yet to come,” NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said. “We expect retailers will once again be competitive on price and value options in the final stretch, especially on Super Saturday.”

In fact, the survey found that most of these Super Saturday shoppers still had completed less than half of their holiday gift buying, resulting from indecision over gifts (44.7 percent), pending requests from loved ones (27.2 percent),  financial priorities (27 percent), or time constraints (25 percent).