Gift Cards Help Canadian Retailers Have Successful Holiday Season

The dust has now cleared and the snow has settled – so to speak – on the holiday shopping season. Notoriously the busiest shopping season of the year, the end-of-year holiday season during the weeks leading up to Christmas see Canadians from coast-to-coast rushing the malls to locate gifts for their loved ones. Reports continue to roll in about how successful this past one was for Canadian retailers.

On the St. Catherines Standard website, Ray Spiteri announces that the low Canadian dollar actually helped for the recent holiday shopping season to be a lucrative one for retailers in the Niagara region. The Pen Centre, which is located in St. Catherines, Ontario, was particularly busy all throughout the holiday season. Helen Edwards, the marketing director for the mall, spoke to Spiteri for his recent article.

“For us it was interesting,” she is quoted as saying, “While the traffic was down slightly, it seems that the average sale was up, so that allows us to believe that people are spending more money over here versus over in the States. We collect postal codes and we found that there were a lot more people this (past) year that were coming from the States.” Edwards goes on to note that extending traditional Boxing Day sales to a week-long event helped to bring in customers.

“(There was a time) where it was just the one day, you lined up outside, you were freezing, all to get that $20 leather jacket,” she recalls, “(That) sense of urgency isn’t there as much as it used to be, but the deals are still there.” Edwards also notes that one item, in particular, seems to be getting more and more popular with each holiday season. Gift cards, she points out, are big winners during each holiday season.

Spiteri writes that, according to Edwards, gift cards are “becoming, more than ever, the go-to present for family and friends”, noting that Boxing Day is The Pen Centre’s “highest day for gift card redemptions.” The mall’s marketing director reveals that no less than 2, 641 gift cards were redeemed at the mall on this past Boxing Day alone. All in all, a total value of $96,000 was redeemed!

“It’s kind of the perfect gift for teens because it’s always the right size, the right colour and it gives them an additional experience where they get to go and shop with their friends,” says Edwards, highlighting something that we’ve written many a time on the Canadian POS Corporation Blog. For many years, we’ve been well aware that gift cards are highly-popular with both Canadian shoppers and recipients. They are, quite honestly, the perfect gifts.

As a result, our gift cards make the perfect solutions for business growth. By selling them in your store, you statistically grow your ability to enjoy repeat business, attract new customers and boost sales all year long. The booming gift card business accounts for billions of dollars per year in sales for retailers nationwide!

Why not begin selling gift cards in your store? Getting set up is easy! For more information, call Canadian POS Corporation at 1-877-748-2884 or email us at info@localhost.