Super Saturday - or Panic Saturday - is the last Saturday before Christmas, an important day for eCommerce sellers to drive revenue and mark the end of the year's busiest shopping season.
Having conquered Black Friday and Cyber Monday amidst the 2020 pandemic, heightened anticipation for this year's Super Saturday results is stirring. The changes to the retail landscape in 2020 have been profound. At PingPong, we want to bring you up to speed with the accelerated consumer behavior changes – increasingly shifting from visiting physical stores to buying online.
Declining Footfall
Super Saturday is usually a big day for seeing increased footfall at physical store locations. However, with the pandemic causing intermittent local lockdowns, retailers are concerned about the footfall in their stores and are taking measures to retain profits. Footfall in stores on Super Saturday last year was already down by 7.6% due to more people shopping online, a shift likely to be intensified this year.
The Shift to Online Shopping in 2020
Retailers have faced a challenging year in 2020, and consumer confidence fell due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Disposable income is less freely available for some, and those who can shop on Super Saturday may choose to buy online to avoid potential contact with the virus. In anticipation of this change in consumer behaviour, the big four mega-retailers, Walmart, Amazon, Costco, and Target, have recently implemented changes to improve their websites in terms of user experience, check out process, and an e-commerce business model.
Change in Consumer Behavior
Super Saturday targets last-minute shoppers and those who have deliberately held out to secure the best bargains. This year we have seen increased pre-Christmas discounts coming earlier throughout November and December; it questions whether retailers will see their usual spike in sales around Super Saturday.
The pandemic has also left many consumers who were previously reluctant to shop online with few other options. This forced change in consumer behavior has sped up digital shopping and is shifting traditionally 'in-person' shopping events to online marketplaces and eCommerce stores.
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