‘The mother’s milk of retail’: Boxing Day frenzy arrives

There is no surer sign Christmas has passed than the sight of a crowded shopping mall in Canada.

And with Boxing Day sales already underway, retailers say they’re geared up to help Calgarians make that last impulse-buy of the year.

Close to 100,000 people are expected to walk through the doors of Chinook Centre on Tuesday, about the same as last year’s postChristmas shopping spree.

“It will be busy,” said Paige O’Neill, Chinook’s general manager. “We definitely ask people to be patient. Our retail associates are doing the best that they can, given the number of crowds, to still create a good experience for everyone. Definitely, patience is required, not only on the streets of Calgary but the parking lots and within the mall itself.”

Over at Sunridge Mall, Best Buy general manager Aziz Kabani is expecting anywhere from 3,500 to 4,000 customers on Boxing Day once doors open at 6 a.m. He anticipates shoppers will flock to this year’s big-ticket items, such as the 65-inch Sharp Roku TV that’s priced at about $800, or the Bose headphones going for $190, a discount of about $120.

“People have usually seen lineups in the store in the past, so people wait for this exciting day all year,” Kabani said. “It’s pretty exciting for us and our staff to get prepped for Boxing Day.”

Dec. 26 remains one of the three busiest shopping days of the year in Canada, along with Black Friday and Dec. 23, when last-minute shoppers scramble for gifts, according to Moneris, Canada’s largest processor of credit and debit card payments.

Black Friday, which arrived on the Canadian scene in 2010, has

It will be busy . . . Definitely, patience is required, not only on the streets of Calgary but the parking lots and within the mall.

actually beaten out Boxing Day for the past three years in terms of total dollars spent countrywide.

But for Chinook shoppers, the post-Christmas tradition still takes the cake, with upwards of 50,000 more customers visiting the mall on Boxing Day than Black Friday, according to O’Neill.

“I think that’s one tradition that will take a while to equal or surpass,” she said.

The timing of Boxing Day at the conclusion of the holiday shopping period, and the ability of stores to promote their markdowns, is one reason the retail event has remained so strong, according to Michael Kehoe, the owner of Fairfield Commercial Real Estate.

“Boxing Day is the mother’s milk of retail in Canada,” he said.

Kehoe noted that retail sales prior to Christmas have been solid this year, with increased traffic in shopping centres across Calgary over the 2016 holiday season. He said that’s not only a good barometer of how the local economy is doing — signalling consumer confidence has rebounded — but a sign that this Dec. 26 could be busier than years past.

For those looking to avoid spending their time in long lines or in search of parking, they can go online and see for themselves how full Chinook’s parkades are at any given time during the day.

“Boxing Day is one day but the sales go on and on,” O’Neill added. “If Boxing Day isn’t your day to go out and be amongst a lot of people doing your shopping, rest assured that the deals continue through the month of January.”

Kabani said Best Buy’s Boxing Day sales are also available online, beginning Christmas Day and ending Dec. 28.

Kehoe’s advice if you’re planning on braving the stores? “I would say go early and go hard,” he said.