If you have the cash, Black Friday deals are worth it: retail expert
Posted November 24, 2023 7:48 am.
Last Updated November 24, 2023 7:54 am.
A lot of people will be pulling out their credit card Friday to try and cash in on annual Black Friday deals.
The one-day shopping event is no longer limited to one day, with sales often starting a week in advance and lasting well through the weekend.
For those who are on early access lists for certain brands or stores, it means some of the hot ticket items may already be sold out by the time Friday rolls around, but that won’t change the fact people will still shop.
Marty Weintraub, partner and national retailer leader with Deloitte Canada, says people will shop online and in-store, and surprisingly, more people will hit the shops.
“As it relates to products being sold out, it’s going to be a little bit of a dog’s breakfast, as we say, depending on the hot, hot items, they almost always sell out,” he told CityNews.
Given the unstable economy facing Canadians from coast to coast, he says many won’t be spending as much as we’ve seen in the past, according to the company’s holiday outlook.
“This year, they’re going to be spending about 11 per cent less than last year, about $1,350, and that’s total spend. That’s not just on gifts, that’s on everything for the holidays, so that could include travel for a holiday, meals, entertainment, experiences, the whole gamut. About a third of that — $500 — will be on pure gift-giving and gift cards.”
He says electronics will be popular this year — think televisions, tablets and phones.
Weintraub says there’s well-stocked inventory for clothes, but not so much for toys, if you’re shopping for children’s Christmas gifts.
“I’ll point to one example, where I know for a fact … there’s a lot of inventory which is around home improvement. So, if you think about the home improvement retailers in the country … they had the heyday during the pandemic while everybody was renovating and investing in their homes.
“Now, that is obviously greatly subsided, and some of the procurement and inventory that they brought in … we know a number of them have distribution centres filled with product.”
Weintraub says Black Friday deals are worth it and often trumps Boxing Day.
“Everyone’s trying to capture a sale as early as possible, so the next company doesn’t,” he explained.
“I think [Black Friday sales] are legitimate markdowns and consumers should be out there trying to save as much as they can, given what’s happening out there in the economy.”
He also warns against waiting too long for an item you want to drop further in price.
“Waiting it out is going to be tricky. Chances are the hot items will sell out, but if it’s something you can buy different versions of, like clothing, I think you can hold out, and then maybe [there’s] some deeper markdowns closer to Christmas.
“But you’re probably not going to see materially more markdowns between the pre-Black Friday sales and Black Friday and that’s a little bit of a psychological confusion with shoppers,” he said.
“The truth of the matter is, you should probably go as soon as you can, and you can get what you want.”
He also feels that increasingly the onus is on retailers to gain back the trust of the public who often feel the deals aren’t good enough.
“That trust is breaking and the other thing at play here is that retailers do need to take that seriously and try to repair that cracking of trust between shopper and retailer because we’ve seen this now for about two or three years, where the number of Canadians think prices are going up too fast, it’s increasing year-over-year and eventually that will be problematic for our retailers.”
