The Urbanspace Union Square Holiday Market is in New York.
A lack of foreign tourists opening up their wallet and another wave of coronavirus cases in some major U.S. cities weighed on shopper turnout on the final Saturday before Christmas, preventing it from bouncing back to pre-pandemic levels.
Preliminary data from Sensormatic Solutions, a division of Johnson Controls, shows that visits to retail stores dropped on Saturday compared with the Saturday before Christmas in 2019. Retail traffic increased by 19.4% over the year.
The second busiest shopping day of the holiday season is on Super Saturday.
There were long lines at Covid-19 testing sites in some cities over the weekend. Consumers left their homes to shop for last-minute gifts, holiday decorations and ingredients to cook up homemade meals. The movie "Spider-Man: No Way Home" enjoyed a big weekend and many braved the Pandemic to go to the movies.
Peter McCall, senior manager of retail consulting at Sensormatic, said that Americans have shown that they will not let this get in their way of getting back to normal as fast as they can. Super Saturday is an example of that.
There were some signs that shoppers were more cautious. Open-air shopping centers and outlet malls have become more preferred by US consumers since Black Friday.
It looks like a preference that looked similar to what it looked like a year ago.
The expert said that the weekend was better for shopping in malls and outlet centers in areas that are less crowded. Craig Johnson, founder of retail consulting firm CGP, called shopping patterns on Super Saturday a tale of three cities.
In major metropolitan areas such as New York, Chicago and San Francisco, store traffic was depressed due to a lack of foreign tourists and heightened fears over the Covid omicron variant.
The state of New York has reported three days of new Covid cases. New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio announced 5,731 new cases on Sunday. In early November, the city averaged less than 1,000 cases daily. A number of Broadway shows have been called off at the last minute, as cast members test positive, and some restaurants are temporarily closing down.
In smaller U.S. cities and more suburban areas, shopping center visits improved over the weekend despite the weather.
He said that the traditional indoor malls were jammed and online sales were robust for areas with rain on Saturday. The outlet malls were packed on Sunday with the rain gone.
There were many out-of-stock reports for popular toys, women's shoes, holiday decorations and Sony's sought-after PS5 unit. Some shoppers might have bought non-Affected gift items if the supply chain had been more stable.
The National Retail Federation, a leading industry trade group, has projected that retail sales over the holiday season could increase by as much as 11.5%. That would be a new record.
