WATCH ABOVE: A telltale sign the holiday season is upon us, the streets in Calgary are already decked out with Christmas cheer and of course busy shoppers. But among the red and green are splashes of yellow, advertising the ‘Shop the Neighbourhood’ deals. Tracy Nagai reports.
CALGARY – It’s a big weekend for holiday shopping with Black Friday and Cyber Monday offering big deals, but there’s another marketing movement growing across Canada.
The goal? For shoppers to buy local.
READ MORE: Big turnout on Black Friday despite sluggish economy
A telltale sign the holiday season is upon us, the streets in Calgary are already decked out with Christmas cheer and of course busy shoppers.
But among the red and green are splashes of yellow, advertising the ‘Shop the Neighbourhood’ deals.
The idea is to keep Canadians’ hard earned dollars in Canada and ‘shop the neighbourhood’ with local stores offering discounts on Saturday, competing with Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
“Local businesses are so critical to the fabric of our communities. They’re the backbone of employment within the country and we want to really highlight that fact,” said Darby Seiben, an organizer.
‘What shop the neighbourhood does, is it really encourages local shopping,” said Ellen Parker from Kensington BRZ.
“Everybody is kind of tightening their belts a little bit and really wanting us as communicators to focus on how to strategically bring people to these small neighbourhoods,” said Parker.
Business owner Kyler Van Der Velden said the effects of shoppers’ belt tightening is definitely being felt.
“There’s less people shopping. Really, there’s less confidence in buying,” said Van Der Velden, from North American Purveyors.
This means some small businesses are also getting on board with the other big marketing movements.
“As far as it goes. last year I wouldn’t have cared. I didn’t do a Black Friday sale. I didn’t think it was important,” said Van Der Velden. “But there are hundreds of thousands of stores selling similar-ish kinds of clothing, that you kind of have to follow suit.”
Organizers say ‘Shop the Neighbourhood’ generated nearly 90 million dollars last year for local businesses.
READ MORE: Black Friday vs Buy Nothing Day
Just another reason to keep the deals coming.
‘Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Small Biz Saturday….we’ll take them all,” said Van Der Velden.
About 13 thousand businesses across Canada participated in this year’s ‘Shop The Neighbourhood”.
READ MORE: Black Friday sneak peek–Are you better off shopping in Canada or the U.S.?
With files from Lisa MacGregor
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