By Linda Nguyen, The Canadian Press
TORONTO – Last year on Black Friday, Silvana Castronovo was standing in a Best Buy in Buffalo, N.Y., at 4 a.m., watching two people duke it out over an electric toothbrush.
Last year’s Black Friday in Canada. PHOTO: BRUCE EDWARDS/EDMONTON JOURNAL
“It was kind of funny. The security guards were around them. Everyone was just watching, wondering what they were fighting over,” said the 29-year-old tech worker.
“It was an electric toothbrush. They were pulling at it. They both had their hands on it and they wanted it.”
The absurdity she witnessed was not enough to make Castronovo rethink her Black Friday tradition.
At the end of the month, the Vaughan, Ont., resident and three friends will again make the trip south — five hours this time to Pennsylvania — to cash in on the biggest shopping day of the year in the United States.
A poll released Thursday by the Bank of Montreal says 47 per cent of Canadians it surveyed planned on shopping on Black Friday this year — up from 41 per cent last year — with each shopper expecting to spend an average of $292.
BMO finance expert Laura Parsons said Canadians continue to flock to popular cross-border destinations because they believe they can’t find the same kind of deep-discounted deals at Canadian retailers on Nov. 29.
“It’s terrible to say, but some of the selection in the U.S., the unique items, is what’s driving us south to do our Christmas shopping,” she said from Calgary. “The outlets aren’t here in Canada and things are probably a lot cheaper there than in Canada.”
Read the full article by Linda Nguyen from the Canadian Press.
