Experts reveal the best time to do your Christmas shopping and it's definitely unexpected

Left your present shopping to the last minute? Don’t panic: Super Saturday is here to save Christmas.

(Image credit: Anna Bizon)

Left your present shopping to the last minute? Don’t panic: Super Saturday is here to save Christmas.

According to PwC researchers, this weekend is the perfect time to bag a bargain. A huge number of brands and retailers are set to slash their prices for Super Saturday, which means we’re set to see some amazing discounts and deals.

If you’ve been holding out, you’re not alone: experts say that up to 40 per cent of shoppers wait until the Saturday before Christmas to start their shopping.

While we made the most of Black Friday, our overall pre-Christmas spending has been lower than usual this year, which means the pressure is on for our favourite brands to shift their unsold stock before the big day. Cue the discounts.

Footfall is expected to rise by 10 per cent compared with last weekend, as we storm the shops to nab those all-important last minute bargain buys, making Saturday 21st December this year’s peak day of trading for UK retailers.

‘We expect to see significantly higher promotional levels this weekend, with deep discounts for patient customers,’ PwC consumer markets leader Lisa Hooker told You magazine.

‘Consumers clearly took advantage of early discounts to purchase Christmas presents, and are now waiting for discounts to deepen once again in the days immediately before Christmas as retailers do their best to shift unsold stock,’ Springboard’s Insights director Diane Wehrle added, speaking to Retail Gazette.

Super Saturday has been a thing in the US for several years, with many shops cutting prices and extending their opening hours in a last ditch bid to attract weekend shoppers. Some shops get up to 60 per cent of their sales in this way.

But if you’re an early bird who’s already finished your Christmas shopping, don’t feel too downhearted – according to the experts, we can look forward to a ‘bumper’ Boxing Day full of discounts and deals, too. Time to get a head start on next year’s list?

Freelance Writer

Samantha is a freelance writer at Goodto who has been with team since 2019. Initially trained in psychology, she specialises in health and wellbeing and has additionally written for magazines such as Women’s Health, Health & Wellbeing, Top Santé, Healthy, Refinery29, Cosmopolitan, Yahoo, CelebsNow, Good Housekeeping and Woman&Home.