Holiday traffic in shopping malls fell by almost half

According to a recent study, traffic to stores last Saturday before Christmas was down 40.9% compared with the previous year.

The number of shoppers coming into stores last Saturday before Christmas, known in the retail industry as "Super Saturday," was down compared to the previous year. The decline wasn't as severe as Black Friday when attendance was down 48 percent from 2019, but it was still very noticeable. So, according to RetailNext, a retail analytics company, the number of shoppers on the last Saturday before Christmas was down 40.9 percent, compared to 2019.

Black Friday and the ensuing Super Saturday have traditionally been the busiest days in commerce. Still, the coronavirus pandemic has led shoppers this year to choose to sit at home and shop online. So, according to Adobe Analytics, online sales on this "Super Saturday" totaled $1.6 billion, up 29.8% from a year earlier.

That's not to say that America's malls resembled ghost towns on "Super Saturday" 2020. Many people who had put off needing to shop until the last day was still lining up in front of the entrances. However, it was immediately apparent that the number of shoppers this year was significantly lower.

And despite the increase in online sales, the total number of purchases made this year was noticeably lower than in previous years. Caught up in an unstable economy, people prefer to buy what they need most. And while many Americans should soon receive the government's promised bailout, it's unlikely to help retailers, for whom almost all of 2020 has been a black year.

Photo credit: Photogenica.

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