Sales down for Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Canadians flocked to malls and online stores for Black Friday and Cyber Monday this week, but at least one tech company has found that shopping activity is down from last year.

Salesforce consumer insights director Caila Schwartz said retail sales are down this Black Friday compared to last year.

“We saw on Black Friday sales in Canada are down around six per cent from last Black Friday, which is about $309 million (CAD),” said Schwartz.

Using data collected from transaction around the world, the Salesforce study found this year's discounts weren't as vast as last year’s.

The average discount in Canada was 21 per cent this year, 11 per cent lower than last , while global discounts averaged 27 per cent.

Retail strategist Carl Boutet said shoppers expected better.

“There’s a huge awareness around price sensitivity, definitely,” he said. “Especially [with] Black Friday being so close to Christmas this year, the holiday season made it even more price sensitive.”

This holiday season has five fewer days between Black Friday and Christmas Eve - reducing the shopping window. That fact has companies working hard to get shoppers’ attention.

“Now we have so much data on our shoppers that we can even make sure that that promotion is really specific to you,” said Boutet.

“We're seeing personalization, the use of artificial intelligence in shopping grow every single year,” said Schwartz. “[It] is always a really important tool during the holiday season. It's a highly promotional time, right? So any way that a marketer can reach a consumer through all of that noise is really important.”

She added that the other important factor this year is getting products on time.

Schwartz said the Canada Post strike means more people in actual stores.

“We're going to see shoppers leaning in to buy online, pick up and store it just to make sure that they can get everything they want on time for the holidays,” she said.