People look at the Christmas decorations in the shop windows at the Country Store on Main Street in Stockbridge, Massachusetts on December 13, 2020.
Joseph Prezioso | AFP | Getty Images
Procrastinators are still in abundance this holiday season, a new survey finds, despite retailers ranging from Target to Best Buy trying to encourage consumers to shop earlier than ever to avoid overcrowded stores and warehouse backlog in the last days leading up to Christmas.
More than 150 million Americans plan to shop on the last Saturday before Christmas, just over 147.8 million in 2019, according to a survey released Thursday by the National Retail Federation. NRF surveyed 8,092 consumers from November 25 to December 4, in collaboration with Prosper Insights & Analytics.
The number of buyers expected on the day, known as “Super Saturday,” also includes those who plan to shop in stores and buy online, NRF said. The trading group said this is the second-highest figure since NRF began tracking the Super Saturday stat in 2016. Last year, Super Saturday fell just four days before Christmas, but this year it’s almost a week before the holiday.
The survey also found that of the people who plan to shop on Super Saturday this year, 42% plan to do so online only, avoiding crowded malls and stores.
The fact that a record number of US consumers will use the coming weekend to buy gifts will put additional pressure on retailers and carriers, including UPS and FedEx, who have already faced the plethora of online orders coming in during the pandemic. Some industry experts have labeled the pressures facing the industry this holiday season as “ shipageddon. ”
Tuesday also marked the official cut-off in the United States for standard land shipping, to receive items for UPS, FedEx and the US Postal Service on December 24. From here, the fast delivery charges increase. And even then, customers who plan to buy online in the next few days run the risk of their items not arriving on time, as promised, due to the high volumes.
All told, as many as 7 million packages per day can be delayed from Thanksgiving to Christmas, according to Satish Jindel, president of ShipMatrix, a company that analyzes shipping package data.
And when shoppers head to stores this weekend, they can expect to wait in line. Many retailers have capacity constraints due to the pandemic.
Even with a few extra days between Super Saturday and Christmas this year, some consumers still won’t finish their purchases for friends and family on time, which will spill over into the New Year.
Sixty-six percent of holiday buyers will likely shop in the week immediately after Christmas, NRF found. Those people cited the typical plethora of post-holiday deals and wanted to use their gift cards as reasons for doing so.
Overall, this holiday season, which NRF defines as running from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31, is forecast by the trading group that retail sales will rise between 3.6% and 5.2% from 2019, totaling between $ 755. 3 billion and $ 766.7 billion.
Read NRF’s full Super Saturday release here.