Retailers, not consumers, driving "Canadian" Black Friday

The past two years has seen an upsurge in Canadian coverage of the iconic post Thanksgiving US shopping experience known as Black Friday.  While it sounds ominous, this is named for the (hoped for) selling day that puts American retailers into the "black", or makes them profitable on the year.  It is the US version of Boxing Day.

Canadian media coverage in recent years has trended to the presumed surge of Canadian shoppers across the border on this day (physically and virtually), and the lost business for Canadian stores.  Research has focused on what people say they will do, which tends to be more optimistic than reality.  Or on the desires of 'online shoppers', which is a subset of our shopper base.

Just after Black Friday In 2010, DIG360 and Angus Reid Forum teamed up to set a benchmark on actual shopper behaviour.  Its a unique study which provides a sober reality check.  

Most Canadians were aware of this sales day in the States. Notably, only 1.5% of adult shoppers travelled to the US on Black Friday 2010.  As we noted, "while this is still quite a notable number, and likely concentrated in some key border crossing areas of the country, this is 1 or 2 people for every 100.  Compare this with the prevailing images of many shoppers flocking across the border to shop US door-crashers in a manner anywhere near our Boxing Day numbers".

Slightly fewer than 4% of Canadian adults specifically shopped online for Black Friday sales at US retailers. Click here for a summary. 

Those Canadian retailers who ran domestic "Black Friday" sales had some slight, incremental success, as 6% of us bought a sale item themed on that day.  Are shoppers driving this promotion? I'd say not. In Canada, a number of the 6% may well have shopped anyway.

Perhaps skittish retailers reacted to the same prior year images of cross border shoppers on the news. More likely, they are seizing any opportunity to create shopping excitement earlier in the holiday shopping season. Regardless of the reason, this will become a growing trend under its own momentum, driven by Canadian retailers afraid to not follow suit. So look for a few more ads and a slighlty higher single digit incidence this year.

We will be updating this study next week and will share results here.