RetailSails

The big news from this past weekend was the blizzard that swept through the East Coast, dampening the prospects for “Super” Saturday, which was expected to rival Black Friday in overall retail sales dollars. Weather intelligence firm Planalytics estimates retailers lost $2 Billion due to the storm, as traffic was down 10% on Saturday compared to last year, but said traffic soared 65% on Friday as many shoppers tried to beat the weather.

Many analysts have speculated that the storm drove consumers to make purchases online, and data from research firm Coremetrics shows it was indeed a strong weekend for e-commerce. The company said online retail sales rose 22.4% overall from last year, with Saturday sales up 24.8% year-over-year. Also, comScore said today that $24.8 billion was spent online during the first 48 days of the November-December 2009 holiday season, marking a 4% increase versus the corresponding period last year.

While results from the holiday shopping season thus far have been underwhelming, there is some optimism as survey data suggests many shoppers are holding out till the last minute for better deals. America’s Research Group (ARG) said that 41.9% of consumers have yet to complete their holiday shopping, compared to just 20.5% of shoppers at this time last year. The main reason for the procrastination – they’ve been spoiled by promotions – “Consumers have a long memory and want those substantial discounts they found last year,” says C. Britt Beemer CEO and founder of ARG.

Retailers will most likely oblige, and the competition for those last few dollars will heat up in the next few days. While we probably won’t see 80% off sales like last year, expect to see increased promotional activity and extensions of free shipping offers. Walgreens CEO Greg Wasson, commenting on quarterly earnings results today, spoke of what most retailers are experiencing:

“Consumer concerns over high unemployment and the challenging economy were a drag on holiday sales at the end of November, and we’ve seen a similar pattern through mid-December. Like every Christmas season, our performance is driven by the final days, which makes this an important week.”

Original projections for overall holiday spending were for a range between a decrease of 1% to an increase of 1% from last year. No analyst has raised expectations, so even with a strong push in the final week the end result will at best be a slight increase from last year, when November-December GAFO retail sales fell 5.3%. Until things start to materially improve in the job & housing markets, expect restrained spending into the new year.