Retailers Hope Discounts Post Christmas Will Help

This year the days that led up to Christmas Day were full of disappointing sales, many retailers hope that sales on products post-Christmas will entice shoppers that have become frugal.

Forecasts for retail sales appear bleak after the retailers gave it their best effort with discounts that started as early as the weekend of Thanksgiving. However, many retailers are hoping that starting December 26, many shoppers will return with gift cards in hand.

One retailer, Target Corp., said December 26 was the most popular shopping day to redeem gift cards at Target.

The best discounted items on December 26 include Christmas decorations and apparel according to an industry analyst. Some of the most aggressive sales are expected to be at Club Monaco, French Connection, GAP and Banana Republic. Additional discounts of as much as 50% are expected on items already reduced by as much as 75%.

ShopperTrak is an industry researcher of retailer shopper traffic. They reported that for the week that ended December 22 in store merchandise had fallen by 3.1% in comparison to the same week last year. Traffic at retail brick and mortar stores was down 21.2%

Last week some of the lull in holiday shopping was attributed to the inclement weather. However, Christmas Eve shopping ended up stronger than anticipated.

One analyst said that those people who procrastinate were caught by the shortened term in shopping. However, many experts in the retail industry expect weekend sales to be strong this weekend.

Many believe that an increase of shopping popularity during November has caused shopping during December to fall.

However, experts said that the majority of holiday shopping sales still take place during December but only by about 10%.

Black Friday spending fell last month, despite their being more shopping this year, said the National Retail Federation. That was even though retailers such as Walmart announced results on Black Friday that were record breaking, including over 22 million customers that shopped on Thanksgiving Day.

Walmart has not released complete figures for their holiday season. A spokesperson for the world’s largest retailer said if Santa was not able to bring you the gifts you wanted, you could come in and see all they have starting December 26.