DISCUSSION
Get ready – there are still three shopping holidays left before Christmas
Written by RetailWire Staff
Photo: UPS
Retailers have made it past Black Friday and Cyber Monday this year, but on the home stretch to Christmas, there are a still a few more critical albeit lesser-known shopping holidays to come.
Green Monday, Free Shipping Day and Super Saturday are all yet to come in December. Green Monday — which according to Quartz was given its moniker by eBay a decade ago — falls on the second Monday in December and marks a date when retailers start deep discounting to clear space for the holidays. Free Shipping Day, on which participating retailers offer the eponymous perk, happens on December 15. And Super Saturday (December 23), or Panic Saturday, is the actual biggest shopping day of the year. Retailers will offer promotions to capitalize on the eleventh-hour shopping rush before Christmas.
These holidays may sound like internet lore, but retailers are taking them seriously. This year, Walmart and Target are both doing Green Monday deals. The Free Shipping Day website boasts 677 major retailers taking part. And while there's no word yet on big retailers' Super Saturday deals, BlackFriday.com's page from last year features info on many big retailers that were making last-ditch efforts.
Retailers may be able to push additional sales by more heavily promoting deals pertaining to any of the three shopping holidays. But it's not clear how much discounting and promotion retailers should do in a season so heavy on both.
And other developments in the retail world may impact how valuable these days are as well. Free shipping, for instance, may not be as much of a cause for celebration in a world where Amazon Prime has made every day Free Shipping Day for its members.
Nevertheless, the post-Cyber Week portion of the shopping season is more critical than one might expect. A webinar by Slice Intelligence indicated that in 2015, 50 percent of holiday sales came after Cyber Monday. The number reached 53 percent in 2016.