The Christmas shopping season turned out to have been a pretty strong one, in large part because of a surge toward the end - and even after Christmas was over. According to the market-research firm ShopperTrak, Christmas Eve was the second-biggest shopping day of the season, following only Black Friday. And the third-largest was a big surprise: the day after Christmas.
The calendar obviously played a large part in this. With Christmas on a Sunday, everyone had Christmas Eve off to do last-minute shopping. And the day after Christmas became a federal holiday, freeing people up to spend even more. With many stores offering huge post-Christmas discounts, we got results like that of Brooks Brothers, which had a record sales day at its stores and Web site on December 26, when the clothier had discounts of up to 40 percent.
That final push could make a huge difference in retailers meeting their goals for the year. Preliminary estimates show that retail revenue for the week ended on Christmas Eve was up 14.8 percent over 2010. We should see full retail figures for the holiday season sometime next week.
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