Christmas Shopping 2019: Did ‘Super Saturday’ Beat Single-Day Sales Records?

Dubbed “Super Saturday, the last Saturday before Christmas this year shattered the one-day record for retail shopping sales.

Spurred by major pushes from the biggest retailers, consumers spent a total of $34.4 billion on Saturday. This outpaced the $31.2 billion spent on Black Friday, the day most associated with mass consumer spending, and roughly tripled the amount spent on an average day during the holiday season.

“Paced by the ‘Big Four’ mega-retailers -- Walmart, Amazon, Costco and Target -- Super Saturday was boosted by the best traffic our team has seen in years,” Craig Johnson, president of the Customer Growth Partners research firm, said. “The question now is whether today’s stellar momentum leads to sustained economic growth into 2020 and beyond.”

Johnson attributed the stellar numbers to the increased disposable income and stronger financial stability in the average U.S. household, creating an atmosphere conducive for holiday spending. Online platforms with their improved site architectures have also seen a 58% increase in business from 2018.

While the origins of the terms to describe it are unclear, Super Saturday, also known as “Panic Saturday,” has long been a day associated with significant amounts of holiday shopping as consumers get in last-minute shopping before the holidays.

A study from 2006 found that the shopping between Dec. 21-24 accounts for 13.6% of all holiday shopping, with some businesses doing as much as 60% of their sales during this eleventh-hour period.

To cash-in on this last-minute rush, many retailers offer special deals and remain open longer in an attempt to court customers. In 2010, it was found that 40% of customers in the U.S. didn’t start their holiday shopping at all until Super Saturday.