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Canadians have flocked to malls and online stores for Black Friday, Cyber Monday and their surrounding sales period, but at least one tech firm found shopping activity is less fervent than last year.

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Salesforce estimated that online Black Friday sales were $309 million in Canada, down six per cent since last year. The software company predicted sales for the full period of Cyber Week will slide by the same amount.

The numbers are a stark contrast to the global picture, where Salesforce found online Black Friday sales grew five per cent from last year to $74.4 billion. It predicted global Cyber Week sales will climb to $51 billion, up from $48.4 billion in 2023.

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While the lingering effects of inflation and a national GST break on some items arriving on Dec. 14 may be pushing shoppers to put off some purchases, Salesforce blamed the combination of a postal strike and lacklustre offers at retailers.

It found the average discount in Canada was 21 per cent this year, 11 per cent lower than last year, while global discounts averaged 27 per cent, down three per cent from the year prior.

“The double whammy of the Canada Post strike and fewer enticing discounts is putting a chill on Black Friday fever up north,” said Caila Schwartz, Salesforce’s director of consumer insights, in a statement.

“With deliveries in disarray and bargains lacking bite, shoppers are hesitating — and online sales are feeling the sting.”

Interac, which facilitates electronic transfers of funds, similarly thought Canada was due to have “a slightly less frantic holiday shopping season this year.”

The company’s prediction is of note because this holiday season has five fewer days between Black Friday and Christmas Eve, cutting down the shopping window significantly for those who wait until Black Friday to launch their spending.

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Interac expects Dec. 20, the Friday before Christmas Eve, will be the busiest shopping day, with 25.9 million purchase transactions. That would amount to a dip in spending volume, when compared with last year’s 27.8 million transactions.

Black Friday hasn’t been the busiest shopping day of the year since 2021, according to data from Moneris contained in a report released by the Retail Council of Canada. Dec. 22 was the most popular shopping day in 2022 and 2023, as the date fell on the Thursday and Friday before Christmas, respectively.

This year, 40 per cent of Canadians told the Retail Council they would shop on Black Friday, the same number as last year. Thirty-six per cent of the 2,510 people the council surveyed said they would shop during Cyber Week, down from 37 per cent last year.

“That said, the latest trends in busiest holiday spending days suggest shifting behavior, showing that Black Friday no longer needs to be a “do or die” day for retailers,” the council’s report concluded.

Yet Shopify Inc. was treating Black Friday and Cyber Monday as one of its biggest days of the year.

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The Ottawa-based company whose e-commerce software powers millions of retail businesses projected a real-time map of sales on the Sphere in Las Vegas.

That map showed Shopify set a new sales record this Black Friday, with global sales reaching US$5 billion. At its peak, the company’s merchants logged US$4.6 million in sales per minute.

By noon on Black Friday, Shopify said the average cart in Canada totalled $220.63. Last year, Shopify calculated it was $172.80 by mid-day on Black Friday.

By 5 a.m. on Cyber Monday, the weekend’s average cart price had fallen to $201.02.

Most of the weekend’s spending had been done on Black Friday around noon eastern time and the most popular product categories were makeup, T-shirts, skin care, hoodies and vitamins.

Interac expects a quarter of transactions during the holiday season to be dedicated to restaurants, 15 per cent to grocery stores and just shy of 11 per cent to gas stations.

Just 4.4 per cent of transactions will wind up at clothing and department stores, suggesting to Interac that shoppers are “prioritizing practical purchases.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 2, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:SHOP)

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