Boxing Day sales bring socially distanced line-ups

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This article was published 26/12/2020 (1912 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Boxing Day was a quieter affair than usual, as a ban on non-essential in-store sales and pandemic-induced fears kept people home Saturday.

Gone are the days of long line-ups, packed aisles and store-hopping. Public health orders require most of what typically goes on sale on Boxing Day — non-essential items — not be sold in stores. Many businesses have tried to recoup some losses by switching to offer curbside pick-up and online sales.

The day was destined to be a shell of its former self, said Farla Efros, president of business consulting firm HRC Retail Advisory.

“There is going to be so much excess inventory that they’re just trying to get rid of” she says. “They also need cash. It’s all about the balance sheet.”

However, some typical sale items, such as make-up and some electronics, are considered essential items by the province and were sold in stores Saturday.

Some people still made their way to stores to pick up sale items, and socially-distanced line-ups still persisted at malls and big box stores around the city.

Marsha Holomay was waiting in her car to pick up a laptop at the St. James Best Buy at a reduced price. While not a regular Boxing Day shopper, she said she preferred the new method of sale shopping, and found it was faster to get her Christmas shopping done for her four kids this year as well.

“It’s been much easier to buy it online and just go pick it up than going into the busy stores,” she said.

Michael Leo was coming to pick up a television he bought online and was waiting curbside to pick it up. He said he’d been waiting a while, but the deal was worth it, and he was trying his best to take advantage of it safely.

“We’re a little bit scared of COVID-19, but we have to come out and buy food and get things,” he said. “We’ll just come out for maybe half an hour, and then we’ll go back home.”

A gift for a friend – a waterproof bluetooth speaker – brought Joseph Ritchot to the electronics store. He said he wasn’t really worried about visiting curbside because he knew stores were taking extra sanitary precautions.

“I was just worried it was going to be really busy,” he said.

A survey from real estate service JLL Canada found that 16 per cent of Canadians planned to seek out Boxing Day deals, compared to 29 per cent on Black Friday.

— With files from the Canadian Press

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: malakabas_