 |
Black Friday sales entice U.S., Canadian shoppers
 |
CBC News
Black Friday, the biggest U.S. shopping day, got underway officially at midnight ET, as stores such as Best Buy, Target, and Abercrombie & Fitch opened their doors to shoppers at the end of the American Thanksgiving.
And in Canada, retailers were staging their own Black Friday specials in an effort to slow any cross-border shopping.
In Los Angeles, which started even earlier, there were reports that at least 10 people suffered minor injuries inside a Wal-Mart when a woman deployed pepper spray during a confrontation in a San Fernando Valley store as people prowled the aisles for discounts. There were no arrests.
In New York and St. Petersburg, Fla., reports said shopping areas were busy, with lineups as long as 2,000 people waiting for stores to open. The attraction, of course, was cut-rate prices, some as much as 70 per cent off, often the lowest of the year.
"It's hard times, so, any discount helps," one man told The Associated Press in Seminole, Fla.
He was hoping to land a cheap TV and laptop.
Merchants bank on Black Friday to start the holiday shopping season, a time when they can make 25 to 40 per cent of their annual revenue. Despite the beleaguered U.S. economy, consumer spending in the holiday season is expected to be almost $500 billion US, about 3 per cent more than last year.
Canadian retailers were concerned that Canadian shoppers, too, might try cash in at U.S. shopping outlets along the border. They were expected to try to keep shoppers at home.
Sally Ritchie of the Retail Council of Canada told The Canadian Press she expects stores to aggressively combat the cross-border shopping craze.
Lose 1 in 5 shoppers
She says there will be such things as big discounts and extended store hours to satisfy that need here in Canada.
Canadian retailers can expect to lose one of every five shoppers to U.S. Black Friday-Cyber Monday discounts, with 30 per cent shopping for the holidays, the Globe and Mail reported Friday, citing an Angus Reid for UPS Canada.
Since the Canadian dollar rose close to parity, removing part of the U.S. shopping attraction, retailers in Canada began touting their own Black Friday deals.
In the U.S., The Gap was reported to be offering discounts of 20 to 60 per cent on many items. Old Navy has pea coats for $29 US and jeans for $15. Toys R Us was selling a Transformers Ultimate Optimus Prime action figure for $30 off at $47.99 and a Power Wheels Barbie vehicle for $120 off at $199.99. Best Buy had a $499 42-inch LCD HDTV for $199 and a $400 Asus Transformer 10-inch tablet computer for $249.99.
According to the International Council of Shopping Centers, about 34 per cent of U.S. consumers plan to shop on Black Friday, up from 31 per cent last year,
381 page views
|
|
|
|