If you open a community paper in Surrey, you’re bound to find a flyer from an American retailer.
While consumers might rejoice at the prospect of finding cheaper goods in the U.S., Surrey businesses are more likely to cringe at the cross-border fight for shoppers.
“I look at some of these ads and say, ‘Jeepers, why are we even carrying these ads?’” said Bill Rempel, general manager of Surrey’s Central City Shopping Centre. “But it’s free trade and an open border, and we have to be competitive and offer a better service.”
In last week’s lead-up to Black Friday, which traditionally marks the start of the U.S. Christmas shopping season, the fight to keep shoppers on this side of the border intensified.
Surrey shoppers were lured by everything from sidewalk sales involving many of Central City’s 140 retail stores to Boxing Day-type promotions.
“We also started late-night shopping on Monday nights, Tuesdays and Saturday nights two weeks earlier than we normally do,” said Rempel, who is also vice-president of the shopping centre’s owner, Blackwood Partners Management Corp. “We do see Black Friday and cross-border shopping as an issue in Surrey.”
Rempel, who was recently named the Surrey Board of Trade’s Business Person of the Year, is also hoping that the recent opening of a 144,000-square-foot Target store at the centre might keep some U.S.-bound customers in Canada.
Rempel said that over the long term, adding services, restaurants and recreation to the shopping offering might also help keep customers local.
A recent Western Washington University study found that 30.5% of motorists interviewed at the B.C.-Washington border in July were going to the U.S. to shop. At the Peace Arch crossing, 42.6% of motorists who used the standard entry and 32.8% of Nexus cardholders indicated shopping as the reason for their trip.
Surrey Board of Trade CEO Anita Huberman said locals are buying everything from clothes and groceries to alcohol and milk in the U.S.
The board believes Canadian merchants are consequently losing business and border communities are losing tax revenue.
While the federal government has implemented a trial removal of tariffs on baby clothes and sporting goods (except bicycles) to increase competitiveness, Huberman said that doesn’t go far enough.
In September, the Surrey board, in partnership with the Fredericton Chamber of Commerce, put forward a resolution urging the federal government to deliver on its promise to reduce the price gap between U.S. and Canadian products.
