Hi Everyone,
Well today is Black Friday in North America. A few years ago, Black Friday was one of the biggest shopping days in the United States, but now Canada is following suit. How couldn’t we, most of our retailers are American. This is what I mean.
If you look around there are very few Canadian owned retailers. Canadian Tire, Dollarama and Loblaw, which franchises out Fortino’s, No Frills, Super Centre, and Shopper’s Drug Mart among others. There are even a few clothing stores like Dynamite, Garage, and Chado which are owned by a boutique in Montreal. Reitman’s is still Canadian, but I’m not sure of L’Chateau. I’m sure I’ve missed some other Canadian retailers, so sorry about that. Anyway, it doesn’t matter whether we are shop Canadian or not. The majority of us are conditioned to shop until we drop boring, or driving most of the men in our lives crazy. Here’s an example.
One day while working, “retail” I asked a man who looked discombobulated if he needed some help. He immediately asked me where the closest liquor store was. I told him exactly how to get there and about 15 minutes later he brought me a bottle of red wine. Why?
As he explained it to me, the female shopper he came into the store with was spending A LOT OF MONEY and TIME at one of counters. Not only did he need an escape plan he needed to drown his financial sorrows! I am serious. Maybe instead of making the monthly sales target for that counter, she should have invested some of her time into educating herself in time management and financial literacy. She may have been THRILLED by the whole shopping experience of having people fawn ALL over her, but he wasn’t. In my opinion, she needs to get her priorities straight. He was clearly a generous man hence my great bottle of wine. ;D
And that is the point of today’s blog. Shopping for some people can be fun. Even though I hate shopping, I love getting a GREAT deal as much as the next person but think about it. Shopping during Black Fridays, because it is now spread over 2-4 days, the busy times at Christmas, Boxing Day or any other peak time is a WASTE of time and time is money.
The long lines to get into stores, then the lines at the change rooms, the check out, trying to make your way through the human traffic of people who are like zombies with a pulse as they aimlessly try to maneuver themselves through the malls will take you twice if not thrice as long. I’m not into that. But hey, if you are, would you please support your local retailers by shopping in the city, country you live and pay taxes in.
On a side note, if you are window shopping because you are bored, shopping even though you truly have more than enough of whatever, than that too is a waste of time.
Here are some related links to previous blogs,
http://arebelsrant.com/cross-border-shopping-anyone
http://arebelsrant.com/when-i-shop-d/ (this one has two other related shopping links)
Thank you for reading, A. Rebel’s Rant! ;D
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