Holiday Shopping Hope: Retail Sales Up

Dec. 21, 2010— -- With Christmas just days away, it seems Americans are opening their wallets and spending again.

The Saturday before Christmas, known as "Super Saturday" was the second-biggest shopping day so far this year, according to new data from Shoppertrak.

Sales for Saturday were up 15 percent from last year and consumers are spending a $1 billion more.

"It's clearly a different move than what we saw last year. There's more energy, it's more exciting, the consumers are certainly more interested in participating in the event," said Bill Martin with Shoppertrak.

The good news for retailers is that they don't have to entice shoppers with extreme discounts as they did in the last two holiday seasons.

"What's happening now is what's left in the store, it's the type of things they want to move. And they believe they can move them with a not as deep a discount as they had last year," said Martin.