Super Saturday (23 December), the last Saturday before Christmas, is predicted to be the busiest in-store shopping day of the entire 2023 peak trading season, rising from the UK’s 3rd busiest day for Christmas shopping in 2022, fresh data reveals.
According to Sensormatic Solutions, while the Saturday of the Black Friday weekend (25 November) is expected to be the 3rd busiest day for in-store footfall during 2023 peak trading, Black Friday itself failed to make it into the top 5 busiest days.
Just 27% of UK consumers plan to head in-store on Black Friday this year and less than a fifth intend to shop for deals online on Black Friday, according to the data.
This compares to 38% of shoppers who planned to buy Christmas gifts online on Amazon Prime Big Deals Day last week.
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Despite the top five busiest footfall days all being expected to fall between Black Friday weekend and Christmas Day, cost-of-living fears are prompting UK consumers to start Christmas shopping earlier, as they seek out the best deals and try and spread the cost of Christmas over several paychecks.
Original research of over 1,000 UK shoppers by Sensormatic in its annual UK Retail Shopper Sentiment Report showed that half had already started their Christmas gift buying by October and two-fifths said they planned to start their Christmas shopping earlier this year.
With economic uncertainty and household budgets remaining squeezed, over half said they were shopping earlier to allow them to spread the cost of Christmas over more paydays, rising to 61% of Millennials, while 45% said they planned to get ahead with gift buying to ensure they could shop around for the best deals, up 9 percentage points year-on-year.
Sensormatic Solutions president Tony D’Onofrio said: “Retailers around the world are likely to have another strong holiday season this year. Those looking to make the most of it can use our predictions as a guide – but it’s critical that retailers also leverage internal data and analytics tools to refine their approach to promotions, staffing and customer experience in November and December. It’s this additional insight that will put businesses two steps ahead entering the New Year.”
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