Black Friday Boom? Canadian Retail Trends
It used to be the norm to hear about Black Friday and associate it exclusively with the U.S. However, this trend has changed recently and Canadians are taking to stores during this busy season and seriously altering typical Canadian retail trends.
Check out this recent article from the Toronto Star: http://ow.ly/DwDNG. According to the article, November is the new December in Canadian retail: “Over the last couple years, Canadian retailers have been offering more and more late November discounts in an effort to reduce the flow of Canadians’ spending money south of the border on Black Friday sales that traditionally kick off the U.S. holiday spending season. While many Canadians are still attracted to the Black Friday spectacle, similar discounting at Canadian retailers has proven extremely popular.”
Additionally, Canadian retail trends have seen November sales grow from 8.2% of full-year sales a decade ago to 8.7% for 2013. And even though December remains the most important month sales-wise, this importance is declining: December accounted for 9.3 percent of annual sales in 2013 compared to more than 10 percent a decade ago.
So what does this mean for you? Well, most importantly, are you taking advantage of Black Friday as a way to increase sales and ramp up customer loyalty? If you are not, you should be. But you can’t just offer discounts and hope for the best. Things like sufficient people support to ensure high levels of customer service as well as highly attractive and attention-grabbing merchandising are considerations to take seriously.
For more about Canadian retail trends and how to take advantage of what is going on in the Canadian marketspace please contact Marketsupport today by calling 905.847.6513.
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