SHOPPING MADNESS
At McArthurGlen near Vancouver airport, sales excitement caused traffic to back up on the bridge, prompting the airport to urge travellers to take Canada Line to YVR
For Bruce Lu, the hardest thing about Boxing Day shopping was trying to stuff a 65-inch TV into a cab.
Lu and friend Jeremy Grant came to the busy Best Buy in downtown Vancouver with an objective and a plan, which they executed like clockwork.
“We checked out the deals online, but came down in person so we can get our hands on the TV immediately,” Lu said as Grant and the cab driver folded the back seat of the van to accommodate the bulky box.
Unlike the few dozen hard-core bargain hunters who lined up to get first dibs when doors opened at 6 a.m., the laid-back duo strolled in mid-morning and were finished in less than 40 minutes.
“We’re done now,” Lu said. “We’re going to go home, put up the TV and eat turkey leftovers.”
But many shoppers were just getting started. Crowds were sparse on Robson Street on Boxing Day morning, but built to a frenzy by the afternoon.
Big-box retailers like Nordstrom, The Bay and Sport Chek enticed shoppers with heavy discounts. Inside stores, lineups snaked outside dressing rooms and cash registers rang up sale after sale on what remains, despite the encroachment of Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year in Canada.
At the McArthurGlen near Vancouver International Airport, Boxing Day excitement caused traffic to back up on the bridge, prompting the airport to urge travellers to take the Canada Line to YVR instead of driving.
David Ian Gray of retail consulting firm DIG360 said Boxing Day sales have taken a hit from Black Friday, an American tradition that started gaining traction in Canada around 2010. “There’s a little bit of cannibalization by Black Friday — there’s so many deals now to be had from Nov. 1 all the way through, with one rolling deal after the other,” Gray said.
According to a DIG360-Leger report, about 20 per cent of Canadians were expected to partake in Boxing Day shopping Tuesday, either online or in brick-and-mortar stores — down from 22 per cent last year and 26 per cent in 2015.
But more Canadians shop on Boxing Day than Black Friday, the report said: About 17 per cent said they bought something on Black Friday in 2016 compared with 22 per cent on Boxing Day.
“It’s a deep tradition in Canada, and multi-generational,” Gray said. “People grow up with that.”
Despite the increasing popularity of online shopping, most purchases still happen in retail stores.
There may be smaller crowds and more elbow room in your local mall, Gray said, but that’s because people do their research online and don’t browse or window-shop as much.
“They’re not using the stores and malls to do research anymore, but we’re still doing a lot of buying in stores,” he said.
Jane Ramirez had poked around online on Christmas Day to scope out potential buys, but she and stepdaughter Camille Griffiths wanted to see the offers and the deals in person.
Buying in store has its perks, Griffiths said, including instant gratification: “It’s helpful going to the store because you don’t want to get the wrong size, and because with online shopping, it won’t get here until later, so you might as well go to the store and get it done.”
At nearby Pacific Centre, sisters Megan and Anne Clark said Boxing Day shopping has become a post-Christmas Day tradition.
Dad sits at a coffee shop while mom co-ordinates the kids’ whereabouts and passes on information on where the best deals can be found.
“It’s working off the Christmas calories, you do it with people, and it’s more fun rather than just clicking away by yourself on a computer,” Megan said.