What a shorter holiday shopping season means for consumers and retailers

The shortened shopping period will shift how retailers market around the season and amp up the pressure consumers feel to make their holiday purchases, experts say.

Canadians waiting for Black Friday to kick-start their holiday shopping have less time to pick up gifts.

There are five fewer days between Black Friday on Nov. 29 and Christmas Eve because U.S. Thanksgiving is later this year.

The shortened shopping period will shift how retailers market around the season and amp up the pressure consumers feel to make their holiday purchases sooner rather than later, experts say.

“With five fewer days between Black Friday and Christmas this year, we can expect to see retailers doing everything they can to get consumers in stores earlier than usual,” said Tandy Thomas, the E. Marie Shantz fellow of marketing at Queen’s University, in an email.

“That means, pre-Black Friday sales are likely to start even sooner than in prior years as retailers try to push traffic to their stores.”

Before Halloween even arrived, Costco, Dollarama and Winners were stocking holiday merchandise and as jack-o-lanterns were being taken to the curb, some retailers had already released Black Friday flyers or even begun a month-long span of promotions.

“The biggest thing that we’re seeing this year … is the shift in the timing of Black Friday, and every retailer in the country is obviously dealing with that,” TJ Flood, president of Canadian Tire Corp. Ltd.’s retail business, said on the company’s latest earnings call.

“That just creates an environment where we’ve got to think through our marketing campaigns and the lead up to Black Friday and then also the last sprint between Black Friday and Christmas, so we’re being very, very aggressive in recognizing that.”