MONTREAL - Black Friday sales in the USA have been so effective in luring people – including many Canadians - that in some cases shoppers fight with weapons in the race to the aisles.
And now a similar effort to bring the hype and slashed prices to Canada has begun.
Retailers are hoping to slow down the flow of southbound traffic looking for stateside deals.
And some Canadian storeowners can't blame shoppers for looking for deals in the USA.
"People are on-line looking at deals in the states and their saying why can't I get that here?" said Scott Phelan of La Boutique Electronique.
Black Friday has traditionally been an American phenomenon, with retailers boosting pre-Christmas shopping with discounts of up to 70 per cent off on everything from clothing to electronics.
Not all experts see the logic in slashing prices now, however.
"Some retailers might not want to have a pre-Christmas sales up here," said Harold Simpkins of the John Molson Scool of Business.
"Christmas sales are the most profitable and why would you want to mark down the price right around the time when demand is the highest?" he asked.
Sally Ritchie, spokesperson for the Retail Council of Canada, said many stores are offering large discounts, scratch-and-save deals and longer hours in order to compete.
But with the loonie performing well against the greenback, and U.S. retailers scrambling to boost sales amid the struggling American economy, it may be difficult to convince shoppers to stay home.
A Bank of Montreal survey suggests 18 per cent of Canadians plan to shop in the U.S. this holiday season, well above last year.
With files from The Canadian Press
