In The News

  

Super Saturday Forecast To Be Holiday 2019’s Busiest Day

California Apparel News

By: Andrew Asch


Super Saturday is Dec. 21, and predictions for one of the final shopping days before Christmas are positive. It’s forecasted to be the busiest shopping day of the holiday season, according to a number of holiday business watchers such as the National Retail Federation, the nation’s largest retail trade group.

The NRF forecasted that 148 million U.S. shoppers plan to shop on Super Saturday. It’s an increase from 134.3 million who shopped on Super Saturday in 2018, said Matthew Shay, the NRF’s president and chief executive officer. The forecast was released Dec. 17 based on data from a survey that the NRF conducted with Prosper Insights & Analytics. . . .

. . . Planalytics Inc., a company with offices in Berwyn, Pa., and in London, advises businesses on how to plan their strategies around weather. While there have been no extreme weather events during the season, the company noted that temperatures had generally been colder and wetter around the country during November. But during the first half of December, temperatures became slightly warmer across much of the country. The days leading into Super Saturday should be a bit cooler before a relatively warmer trend in the days leading up to Christmas. Temperatures will then cool during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day compared to the same time the previous year, said David Frieberg, a Planalytics spokesperson. “It’s a bit of a see-saw situation,” he said.

Weather has been cold for consumers who live in the Midwest or along the Eastern seaboard. In early December, an arctic cold front covered much of the upper Midwest and Northern Plains, and the cold air made its way into the mid-Atlantic region, even Miami, Fla., where temperatures hit a high in the 60s.

Generally, cold weather has helped retailers sell winter clothes. For the first weeks of December, Planalytics forecasted that colder weather would generate a 3 percent increase in demand for sweaters in Denver and a 7 percent increase in demand for thermals in Cleveland and a 3 percent increase in demand for fleece in Miami. On Black Friday Weekend, Los Angeles weather was the coldest it had been in more than 20 years. Planalytics said that demand for jackets increased 5 percent in Los Angeles during that weekend. . . .

Read the original article here.