Retailers are struggling to meet even modest forecasts for the holiday shopping season this year after the "Super Saturday" before Christmas failed to live up to its nickname, industry research groups said.

The last Saturday before Christmas often sets the annual record for retail sales, vying with Thanksgiving weekend's Black Friday. In recent years, last-minute shopping has determined the success of the season, and a relatively weak final weekend bodes poorly for retailers.

This year Super Saturday weekend sales in stores and online rose 4 percent to $55 billion, after a 2.5 percent gain last year, according to retail consultancy and private-equity fund Customer Growth Partners. That puts overall store and online sales from the start of November through Dec. 22 on track to rise 3.1 percent, below the 3.2 percent pace the firm forecast and down from 4.1 percent growth in the same period last year.

"Sales have been sluggish so far this year as most consumers are still buying close to need," said Craig Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners. "What's worse is the marked deceleration from a year ago," he said.

Last year, last-minute sales gained in the final 10 days of the holiday season, driven by savings from lower gasoline prices. If sales, spurred by gift card redemptions, hold up in the week after Christmas this year, retailers could move closer to meeting performance forecasts, consultants and retail experts said.

The National Retail Federation, the leading industry body, has forecast a 3.7 percent rise in store and online sales this year.

Discounts across categories have been deeper than last year, in the range of 20 percent to 50 percent, said Traci Gregorski, vice president of marketing at analytics firm Market Track. But consultants said the discounting still had not been enough to boost store traffic materially.

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