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U.S. In-Store Holiday Shopping Holds Up Despite Omicron

U.S. In-Store Holiday Shopping Holds Up Despite Omicron

The omicron variant didn’t slow down America’s holiday shopping this past weekend. 

Foot traffic to stores and shopping centers in the U.S. on Dec. 18 -- the last Saturday before Christmas -- rose 19% from a year ago, according to data from Sensormatic Solutions. The uptick occurred despite rising concerns about the rapid spread of the latest Covid-19 variant.

“At this point, we’re not seeing a noticeable impact to brick-and-mortar retail,” from omicron, said Peter McCall, a consultant for the retail advisory practice at Sensormatic Solutions. But there still are “lots of days ahead of us between now and the end of the year.”

The industry has dubbed this day “Super Saturday” because it’s often the second-busiest shopping day of the holiday season behind Black Friday, which takes place the day after U.S. Thanksgiving. Black Friday week and the first three weeks of December clocked foot traffic increases of 14% and higher compared to last year. 

While store visits jumped from last year -- the first holiday season during the coronavirus pandemic -- they didn’t fully rebound to 2019 levels. Shopper traffic on Saturday was down 26% from two years ago, according to Sensormatic Solutions, a subsidiary of Johnson Controls International Plc that analyzes foot traffic by counting mobile devices at stores. 

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.