Holiday Shopping Is Expected To Be More Intense This Year & Here's When It'll Be Busiest

Have you already started thinking about holiday shopping? If not, you might want to start because new data shows that the busiest time for getting gifts during the season is almost here.

The Retail Council of Canada (RCC) has released its annual Holiday Shopping Survey of Canadians across the country and it turns out that not only are people shopping early but they're also planning to spend way more money than last year.

According to the survey, 30% of people plan to start shopping before November because of product availability issues they experienced last year. That's up from 23% in 2020!

November is still expected to be the busiest shopping month during the holiday season as 36% of consumers plan to start buying gifts then. When it comes to getting deals, 43% of people plan to shop on Black Friday and 35% on Cyber Monday.

The RCC also found that people plan to spend $792 on gifts this year which is up from $693 in 2020. However, given consumer behaviour in the past, it's expected that people will actually end up spending more than $800.

According to the Canadian Toy Association, Canadians should shop for toys early this holiday season because global supply chain issues are anticipated to cause inventory shortages.

This holiday season is also expected to be busy when it comes to mail. Purolator is hiring 2,400 new employees to help get 54 million packages delivered on time and Canada Post is hiring in Ontario and B.C. for the annual holiday rush.