Retail stores hoping to keep up as shoppers head online for Cyber Monday

Many people will be getting lots of holiday shopping out of the way with big sales on the internet for Cyber Monday.

But as more and more people buy their stuff on the internet, retailers are doing everything they can to keep customers walking in, meaning shoppers benefit from more deals.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday started in the United States, spreading to our side of the border to prevent Canadians from shopping south.

Because of this head start, Mohammed El Hazzouri, Associate Professor of Marketing at Mount Royal University, said American sites may have some better deals.

“The market was lagging in Canada and now the market is catching up,” explained El Hazzourie. “So I wouldn’t say the market is as big in Canada as it is in the States, but maybe in the future this will start happening for Cyber Monday.”

But retailers are trying to make it easiest for the shopper, meaning sales everywhere.

“So whether it is the brick and mortar stores or whether it is online, so they kind of give you deals where ever you want to go, where ever is more convenient for you as a consumer,” said El Hazzouri.

Also, he adds brick and mortar stores can rest assured that it will take a long time before malls become ghost towns.

“Still, the primary sales in Canada is brick and mortars. Will this change? Probably it will change steadily as more and more retailers catch up to the online market and start having online options for their stores.”

It’s essentially just a preference between online convenience or the retail shopping experience, something stores are trying to promote in order to keep up the foot traffic.

“The online environment obviously can offer the same (products) things that we can, and there’s a tangible experience that our guests experience when they do come to the shopping centre, so there’s a lot of different things that we’re doing,” said Shawn Hanson, General Manager of South Centre Mall.

Plus, there’s at least one thing you can get in the malls that you cannot get on the internet.

“You can’t visit Santa online,” added Hanson. “So there’s a lot of different things that you experience when you come here, we’ve paid close attention to that.”

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