Super Saturday or Panic Saturday is the last
Saturday
Saturday is the day of the week between Friday and Sunday. No later than the 2nd century, the Romans named Saturday ("Saturn's Day") for the planet Saturn, which controlled the first hour of that day, according to Vettius Valens. The day ...
before
Christmas
Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year ...
, a major day of revenue for American
retail
Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesaler, and ...
ers, marking the end of the shopping season which begins on
Black Friday. Super Saturday targets last-minute shoppers. Typically the day is ridden with one-day
sales
Sales are activities related to selling or the number of goods sold in a given targeted time period. The delivery of a service for a cost is also considered a sale.
The seller, or the provider of the goods or services, completes a sale in ...
in an effort to accrue more revenue than any other day in the
Christmas and holiday season
The Christmas season or the festive season (also known in some countries as the holiday season or the holidays) is an annually recurring period recognized in many Western and other countries that is generally considered to run from late Novemb ...
.
The date is slightly more likely to fall on December 22, 19, or 17 (58 in 400 years each), than on December 21 or 20 (57), and slightly less likely to occur on December 23 or 18 (56). On years when Christmas falls on a Sunday, Super Saturday is officially on December 17 instead of December 24 even though the last Saturday before Christmas is December 24.
Sales
Super Saturday typically nets approximately $15 billion in retail sales.
To compete with each other, stores offer significant discounts and extend store hours in an attempt to attract customers and drive
impulse buying
In the field of consumer behavior, an impulse purchase or impulse buying is an unplanned decision by a consumer to buy a product or service, made just before a purchase. One who tends to make such purchases is referred to as an impulse purchase ...
.
Super Saturday accounts for a significant portion of the holiday sales for retail stores. In 2006, a study determined that sales between December 21 and 24 accounted for 13.6 percent of holiday sales.
Some businesses do as much as 60 percent of their sales on this day.
In an effort to attract customers, stores often extend their hours during these crucial days of the retail season. Some stores go as far as to leave their stores open all day long until
Christmas Eve in hopes that customers will take the extra time during off-peak hours to both review alternative options and to spread out workloads for
cashier
A retail cashier or simply a cashier is a person who handles the cash register at various locations such as the point of sale in a retail store. The most common use of the title is in the retail industry, but this job title is also used in the ...
s.
Because stores predict double or triple their typical customer turnout on Super Saturday, many increase their staffing during these critical days to be able to handle the demand.
Shoppers
The day typically nets a significant amount of revenue for retailers because of the demand by shoppers. 2009 reports indicated that by the middle of December, more than half of all shoppers in the United States still had more holiday shopping to do.
Some experts predicted that approximately 40% of consumers hadn't started their holiday shopping by Super Saturday in 2009, with some customers citing full-time jobs as impeding their access to stores earlier in the year.
Cathy Bergh from The Christmas House notes that the day is significant because it is "the last chance
or shoppersto get out and do their shopping."
Some shoppers, however, intentionally wait for Super Saturday to finish their shopping due to the availability of discounts. Alternative reasons for waiting until the final Saturday to make holiday purchases include ensuring that purchases are within budget. Other customers choose to do their shopping early in an attempt to avoid the long lines and large crowds associated with the retail holiday.
Unlike Black Friday,
online
In computer technology and telecommunications, online indicates a state of connectivity and offline indicates a disconnected state. In modern terminology, this usually refers to an Internet connection, but (especially when expressed "on line" o ...
shopping does not typically infringe upon retail stores' access to customers. Due to Super Saturday's proximity to
Christmas
Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year ...
, shoppers are typically reluctant to venture online for deals, as purchases may not be able to arrive in time for the holiday.
However, this is not always the case. If customers are unable to gain access to the stores, like what happened during the
North American blizzard of 2009, customers who have little time left to buy their gifts may be forced online.
Other usages
Super Saturday can also be used for any Saturday where a large number of related events are held. For example, in the context of the
Eurovision Song Contest the Saturday on which most broadcasters organize their national final is often declared as Super Saturday.
The final Saturday of the
US Open in tennis is called "Super Saturday". If the tournament is running to schedule and has not been delayed by inclement weather or similar, both the men's semi-finals and the women's final are played on this day, with the men's semi-finals in the afternoon, then the women's final at night.
The phrase was also used (mainly by the
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
media) to refer to the middle Saturday of the
2012 Summer Olympics (4 August) where
Team GB
Team GB is the brand name used since 1999 by the British Olympic Association (BOA) for their Great Britain at the Olympics, British Olympic team. The brand was developed after Great Britain at the 1996 Summer Olympics, the nation's poor perfor ...
athletes
Jessica Ennis
Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill (born 28 January 1986) is a British retired track and field athlete from England, specialising in multi-eventing disciplines and 100 metres hurdles. As a competitor in heptathlon, she is the 2012 Olympic champion, ...
,
Mo Farah
Sir Mohamed Muktar Jama Farah (born Hussein Abdi Kahin; 23 March 1983) is a British long-distance runner. His ten global championship gold medals (four Olympic and six World titles) make him the most successful male track distance runner ever ...
,
Greg Rutherford
Gregory James Rutherford MBE (born 17 November 1986) is a retired British track and field athlete who specialised in the long jump. He represented Great Britain at the Olympics, World and European Championships, and England at the Commonwealth ...
,
Danielle King,
Laura Trott,
Joanna Rowsell,
Tom James,
Pete Reed
Peter K. Reed OBE (born 27 July 1981) is a retired British Olympic rower. Reed is a three-times Olympic gold medallist – earning gold in the Men's coxless four at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, and then a gold medal in the Men's eight at the 2 ...
,
Andrew Triggs Hodge
Andrew Triggs Hodge (born 3 March 1979) is a British former rower - a three time Olympic champion and four time world champion. In the British coxless four in 2012 he set a world's best time which still stood as of 2021.
Education
Born in Hal ...
,
Alex Gregory,
Katherine Copeland and
Sophie Hosking all won gold medals.
The phrase was also used by British media to refer to the Saturday of October 19, 2019 when
Boris Johnson
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (; born 19 June 1964) is a British politician, writer and journalist who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He previously served as F ...
’s withdrawal agreement for leaving the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...
was defeated in
Parliament
In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...
.
See also
*
Black Friday (shopping)
Black Friday is a colloquial term for the Friday after Thanksgiving in the United States. It traditionally marks the start of the Christmas shopping season in the United States. Many stores
offer highly promoted sales at discounted prices ...
*
Buy Nothing Day
Buy Nothing Day is a minor event of protest against consumerism. In North America, the United Kingdom, Finland and Sweden, Buy Nothing Day is held the day after U.S. Thanksgiving, concurrent to Black Friday; elsewhere, it is held the followin ...
*
Small Business Saturday
Small Business Saturday is a marketing initiative created and promoted by the American Express credit card brand to encourage holiday shopping on the Saturday after Thanksgiving in the United States, during one of the busiest shopping periods ...
*
Cyber Monday
Cyber Monday is a marketing term for e-commerce transactions on the Monday after Thanksgiving in the United States. It was created by retailers to encourage people to shop online. The term was coined by Ellen Davis of the National Retail Fe ...
*
Green Monday
*
Giving Tuesday
GivingTuesday, often stylized as #GivingTuesday for the purposes of hashtag activism, is the Tuesday after Thanksgiving in the United States. It is touted as a "global generosity movement unleashing the power of people and organizations to transf ...
*
Moral panic
A moral panic is a widespread feeling of fear, often an irrational one, that some evil person or thing threatens the values, interests, or well-being of a community or society. It is "the process of arousing social concern over an issue", us ...
References
{{christmas
Sales and clearances
Christmas economics
December observances
Unofficial observances
Christmas-linked holidays
Saturday observances
Retailing by time of year