Are you going shopping for Black Friday this weekend? – Poll

Photo: The Canadian Press

Shoppers carry bags as they cross a street in San Francisco, November 29, 2019.

Cross-border shopping is an essential part of Black Friday for some Canadians.

But with the Canada-US land border closed to non-essential travel to limit the spread of COVID-19, jumping over the border for holiday shopping isn’t an option this year.

For Canadian retailers, the closure has created a captive market, at least for in-store purchases.

“In previous years, many Canadians jumped across the border to take advantage of the crazy deals in the US, which often exceeded what we were getting in Canada,” says Tandy Thomas, associate professor at the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University.

“But the ability to make such easy cross-border shopping no longer exists.”

Thomas says closing the border creates a more favorable environment for Canadian retailers.

“They don’t have to compete with their US counterparts in the same way,” he says. “It is literally a captive market.”

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