Macy's to stay open 48 hours for holiday shoppers

• Saturday before Christmas usually season's busiest shopping day

INDIANAPOLIS -- Move over big discount stores with your 24-hour, round-the-clock shopping marathons.

Department store Macy's is ready to give you a run for that holiday shopping money.

The New York-based chain said Friday it will stay open 48 hours straight the weekend before Christmas — opening at 7 a.m. on Friday, Dec. 21, and staying open through 7 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 23.

And while the special sales for the marathon will end at 7 a.m. Sunday, stores will actually keep their doors open until midnight Sunday.

So, technically, it's more like a 65-hour marathon, but who's counting?

Macy's began the tradition of keeping its doors open for 24 hours at the Macy's Queens Center in Cincinnati in 2006. As the years went on, it added stores. Last year, 14 locations went to 24 hours for the holidays.

The test went well. Customers loved it.

So this year, Macy's extended it to all 800 of its stores nationwide.

Why? It makes perfect sense, said Richard Feinberg, a retail professor at Purdue University.

"Contrary to popular belief, Black Friday is not and has never been the best shopping day of the holiday shopping season," he said. "That title usually belongs to the Saturday before Christmas."

Exactly when Macy's is making its 24-hour move, all in an effort to make shopping more convenient for its customers and to pull in a piece of that $586 billion consumers are expected to spend this holiday season.

Spending is expected to jump 4.1 percent this year, according to the National Retail Federation. Sales rose 5.9 percent during the 2011 shopping season.