As inflation continues to crush Canadian spending, a retail professional says misleading reductions primarily based on increased common costs may mislead buyers this vacation season.
Bruce Winder advised CTV News Channel on Sunday that customers can anticipate to see “a lot of sticker shock” in retail shops within the coming months.
“You’re going to see a lot of discounts but a lot of those discounts will be based on higher regular prices year-over-year because of inflation,” he stated.
“My hypothesis is that consumers are going to start [holiday shopping] early and they’re going to really cherry-pick discounted items.”
Unlike final 12 months, when retail shops confronted provide chain shortages, Winder defined that retailers have stacked in extra stock for this vacation season.
“[Retailers] had to make calls about a year ago before inflation popped up and the economy [took a] hit. So retailers had those big bets and they all arrived,” he stated.
Winder added that these retailers are going to should low cost that extra stock considerably to “move it out,” and customers ought to store round in the event that they’re looking for offers.
Statistics Canada’s newest client value index report exhibits that Canada’s annual inflation charge in September lowered barely to six.9 per cent from 7.0 per cent in August.
This is a smaller lower than economists anticipated given hiked-up rates of interest from the Bank of Canada, and whereas financial projections of a technical recession have added to the storm of soured client sentiment, some customers are involved that retailers are bumping up prices to mitigate monetary pressures afterward.
“Retailers will mostly try to pass on cost increases when they can,” Winder stated. “Some can and some can’t. But there are hypotheses going around that some retailers are padding it even more than inflation.”
Winder stated that customers “won’t really know.”
“The best thing I would say if you’re a consumer is shop around,” he suggested.
“Look for real deals, and don’t just assume because it’s a discount it’s a great deal. Comparison shop. Look for retailers that have a lot of inventory in store — you’ll notice it and they’ll probably be discounting it more significantly.”