Black Friday Comes Early

At the beginning of the week, we asked you if you were getting your “shop on” yet. Taking a look at a piece by Toronto Star business reporter, Dana Flavelle, we listed some of the more popular items that will be on many holiday shopping lists this year. Today, Flavelle reports that Canadian retailers are lowering prices hoping to keep you in Canada to spend your money.

“Canadian retailers are making a pre-emptive strike against ‘Black Friday,’ the U.S. shopping bonanza that officially kick starts the holiday shopping season south of the border,” writes Flavelle. So if you haven’t started your holiday shopping yet, this weekend may be the perfect time to start.

This weekend, shoppers can expect low prices on items of all sorts from a number of retailers. Walmart, for example, will be selling “Emerson brand 32-inch LCD HDTVs for as little as $198 and popular toys, such as zhu zhu pets, for as little as $4.” Evidently, there will be some major competition amongst a variety of stores to see who can come up with the lowest prices.

According to retail consultant Wendy Evans, who is the president of Evans and Company Consultants, in Toronto, Canada’s merchants “want to give people a reason to stay here and spend their dollars here before they go across the border. The sales are on now – this weekend. They figure there’s only so many dollars out there and they want to get them first.”

Apparently, big discounts will also be made available at such stores as The Gap, The Bay, Sears, Canadian Tire, Suzy Shier, Home Depot, Black’s Photography and The Source. In fact, the electronics retailer plans on joining in on the American past time of “Black Friday” this year.

Falling on November 26th this year, “Black Friday” refers to the day after American Thanksgiving when retailers in the United States offer the biggest discounts of the year in an effort to get customers to participate in a major shopping binge. Many Canadians travel south of the border to take advantage of some of the unbelievable prices.

Some of our Synergy reps are no strangers to this tradition. “I went to Pennsylvania a few years ago with some of my friends and their cousins,” one of our associates reported, “We bought things for prices we couldn’t believe. Name brand t-shirts for five bucks, shoes for a fraction of what we pay up here, it was amazing!”

Evidently, Canadians are increasingly taking notice of this annual event. And Canadian retailers are getting wise to the game. Said Vince Power, a spokesperson for Sears Canada: “Black Friday has grown in importance. Ten years ago it was just an American Thanksgiving thing. It didn’t have much impact in Canada.”

Perhaps, this year will be the year that you take advantage of Black Friday prices, if you haven’t before. And you won’t have to leave Canada to do so!