new survey from BMO<\/a> found that three-in-five Canadians plan to adjust their holiday spending amid tariff concerns and the rising cost of living. Nearly half of respondents said holiday sales and discounts prompt them to spend more, or purchase more gifts, than they initially intended.<\/p>\n\u201cMost shoppers today \u2026 are going to be spending, or they anticipate spending at least about what they spent last year,\u201d he said in an interview with CTV News Channel Saturday. \u201cBut of course, the challenge is, things are decidedly more expensive this year, and so shoppers are really on the hunt for bargains.\u201d<\/p>\n
Retail analyst Liza Amlani says retailers know that and are relying heavily on targeted outreach. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m seeing retailer brands lean into personalized marketing to lure customers, either onto websites or into stores,\u201d she said in an interview with CTV News Channel Saturday. <\/p>\n
Both analysts say Black Friday has turned into a month of rolling markdowns. Stephens calls it \u201ca pervasive creep in the industry,\u201d where holiday promotions begin almost as soon as Halloween displays come down, and sometimes before. <\/p>\n
With more Canadians shopping online and spreading purchases throughout the year, including during Amazon Prime events, he says some holiday spending \u201cmay have happened months ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the trend this year isn\u2019t just about when Canadians shop. It\u2019s also about where. <\/p>\n
Stephens says a noticeable share of shoppers is turning away from major U.S. chains in favour of local and Canadian businesses.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are basically (avoiding) the large American retailers, both online and offline, in favour of trying to do things locally,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Amlani says she\u2019s seeing the same thing. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to see a little bit more activity in local shopping, local in specialty stores, which is a great thing to see, because we want to see people shopping our own Canadian brands,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Stephens notes that resale is also surging, with many shoppers seeing it as a way to \u201csave money, but at the same time\u2026 save a lot of things from going to a landfill site.\u201d <\/p>\n
Amlani cautions, however, that retailers risk training customers to expect perpetual markdowns. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe more markdowns they have, the more their margins will erode, and the customer will be accustomed to shopping on discount,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
With files from CTV News\u2019 Annie Bergeron-Oliver<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Malls across the country are packed with people as Canadians venture out for Black Friday sales. Discounts have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316228,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[712,49,48,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-316227","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}