With border crossings reportedly busy Friday morning, many Canadians appeared eager to participate in the biggest shopping day of the year in the United States – Black Friday.
Canadians who missed the gluttony of that day are getting a second chance to spend, spend, spend.
The e-commerce industry has taken to promoting the Monday following American Thanksgiving as Cyber Monday – “the busiest online shopping day of the year.”
“With almost half of all Canadians now doing at least some of their holiday shopping online, and domestic retailers increasingly shadowing U.S. promotional trends, there is the potential for very significant activity on Cyber Monday," said Douglas Porter, deputy chief economist of BMO Capital Markets, in a release.
"While [Cyber Monday] is a relatively new concept for Canadian shoppers, it certainly could become an important date on the domestic retail calendar."
A BMO survey conducted by Leger Marketing found that 41% of Canadian consumers will turn to the Internet to do their holiday gift shopping.
While one-third of females plan to use the Internet to buy a gift, half of male respondents plan to do so. Almost half of British Columbians and Ontarians (46%) will go online for holiday shopping.
Those provinces’ residents are second to Prairie-province residents in terms of receptiveness to online shopping. Quebec residents are least likely to log-on, with only 27% planning to buy gifts online.