Black Friday: Sales juggernaut or contrived retail trap?

[Yup, that’s pretty much how it all plays out]

As Canadian retailers unfurl their Black Friday signage to keep step with their U.S. counterparts, there’s no question the shopping event carries a different meaning in Canada.

“Not all Canadians are convinced quite yet, we know it’s a contrived import from the U.S. that got started here,” Ed Strapagiel, retail analyst and consultant told Yahoo Canada Finance. “If anything, Canadians are a little more suspicious about retailers and their excuses for having a sale – all these (deals) that say ‘up to 50 per cent off’ what does the ‘up to’ mean?”

A new survey by RedFlagDeals of 1,000 Canadians, found Canadians had lukewarm feelings about the day – which falls on November 25 this year – with 66 per cent saying the U.S. has better deals.

“It’s a different situation in Canada, we don’t really have the tradition of it – it’s Thanksgiving in the U.S. so you get a day off,” says Strapagiel adding that in Canada, Boxing Day is king when it comes to retail holidays.

Four-in-ten (41 per cent) of Canadians surveyed by RedFlagDeals say that Boxing Day has the best deals versus 27 per cent who point to Black Friday as the day where they’ll find those super sales.

While there’s room to grow for Black Friday in Canada – more than 70 per cent of shoppers surveyed by Accenture say they’re apt to shop this year, contrasted with 60 per cent last year – that growth faces some headwinds.

“The ceiling on the growth is boxing week, at some point there’s only so much money to spend and people know that boxing week is coming… for decades we’ve been trained as shoppers here in Canada,” explains Marty Weintraub, partner and retail consulting leader at Deloitte Canada.

While Weintraub is, for the most part, optimistic the holiday will continue to grow in Canada, he does admit in the few short years it’s been going on in Canada it has split off from the definition of Black Friday to the south.

“The type of retailers participating is a little different in the U.S., there’s it’s true retail: the malls, the power centres (whereas) in Canada it’s broadening a little bit,” says Weintraub pointing to car dealerships and service based business offering their own Black Friday deals. “We’re moulding it into something that’s a little different.”

The convergence of digital with brick and mortar has also created an interesting dynamic for Black Friday shoppers, especially in Canada where there’s no holiday to spend on deal hunting.

“The same Black Friday deals are available online at the same time as in stores so you don’t have to leave work anymore, you can shop from your desk (at work),” says Weintraub.

And it’s grown from a single day to a weeklong event, adds Strapagiel.

“Amazon.ca is already having Black Friday on a limited countdown basis kind of thing – it’s all over the place,” he says. But it also makes it hard to know if you’re getting the best deal or even getting a deal at all.

“The trouble with all this is that, yes, attentive consumers who do their homework are going to take advantage and will come out ahead, others not so much, they might just get sucked in,” says Strapagiel.

He points out that sometimes retailers bring in special merchandise just for Black Friday that they can sell at deep discounts that may be the no frills versions or less desirable versions of the sort of electronics or products they’d otherwise be selling.

“There’s lots of little retail traps that consumers can fall into and they don’t want that,” he adds. “(Deal-seekers) need to be attentive.”