Boxing Day is Dead

[baller29]

In the past few years ive been noticing that retailers have really shifted there focus away from boxing day, regular sale prices are similar to boxing day prices. These past few years we complain, i feel like in 2012 we have come to a realization that boxing day is nothing to look forward to anymore. The tradtion still stays on retailers still bears the name of boxing day but in reality boxing day is dead and is not a day to look forward to as in the past.

[Nook]

That's why you shop in the USA, whether in person or online. Though some stores like Brooks Brothers have very decent Boxing Day sales, granted that they do follow the policies of their American counterparts.

[Kyjo4]

My biggest gripe about boxing day this year is that online sales start on Christmas Eve, they keep starting earlier. Last year I only purchased a couple of items, the sales seem to be getting smaller.

[redeagle]

I agree and the fact that retailers now offer Black Friday deals to compete with the US, Boxing Day doesn't seem very appealing all of aa sudden. I actually ended up finding really good deals from Black Friday to now and have purchased all the items I would have Boxing Day. For once my wife will be happy I won't be pulling out my phone during Christmas Eve dinner to do early on line BD shopping lol.

[Scott84]

Boxing day hasn't been the same for atleast 10 years. That being said, I feel really bad for the suckers who wait in line. If you really need a tv, buy it on the online sale and pay the $50 shipping or less. That way you don't wait 12 hours in line. Time is money. And there hasn't been a sale worth any line up in the cold. Especially when you are not even guaranteed to buy it.

I give kudos to FS/BB (and other online retailers) for making it easier by being able to buy stuff online. They have had some good deals thanks to free shipping (and sometimes with paid shipping) in recent years. Beats lining up.

[BinaryJay]

As usual, it is safe to completely ignore boxing day as far as leaving the house to go somewhere physical is concerned. I haven't bothered going to a store on boxing day in years and I'm pretty sure back when I did I didn't even know what I was doing it for and was generally less aware of the true value of things or regular sale pricing etc.

Now, I just check a few places online very briefly and get on with it.

By the way does anybody actually have a recollection of when boxing day was actually boxing day and not boxing week and then boxing month and then pre-boxing day and boxing day in july? :P

Best part about boxing day now is the fact that it's a day off without using any more vacation days.

P.S. It seems like the people that will stand out in the cold in a lineup all morning are probably the people that are the worst with their money and doing any kind of research on prices before buying stuff. Really they just assume it's boxing day so the prices must be awesome.

[Cas77]

Oh nice the annual boxing day is dead thread celebrating it's 10 year anniversary. I was wondering when this would show up, it's usually after 5 flyers are posted but for some reason this year it was more like 10 flyers. This thread organically grows in parallel with the negative comments in individual sales threads. (i.e. "wallet safe", "Not hot", etc...). Then come Dec 24th at 7pm you will see the birth of the annual "I hate Future Shop" thread when their servers inexplicably fail under the web traffic load created by....who knows right..not like there were any deals?! Everyone complained about the dealless deals so it's definitely not RFDers crashing the sites.

Wait, who is crashing these sites then? Riiiight it's the thousands of RFDers posting in these store sale threads they first bitched and moaned about, making them grow to thousands and thousands of posts such as:
"Item X has finally been restocked"
"I managed to pick up a X"
"Order Confirmed"
"How long did it take you to get the confirmation email?"
"I managed to pick up X, Y & Z"
"They were out of X so I guess I'm lining up at 5am on the 26th (insert sad face of choice)"
...
...
...

So there you have it folks...a summary of every boxing day for the last 10 years. Don't believe me? Head to the archives to read the long version for a great laugh.

From a retailer standpoint; if it ain't broken then don't try to fix it.

[Madevilz]

same speech every year, last year I only bought a bit of clothing, nothing much. Wasn't much of a deal either.

In b4 Boxing Day is a scam thread.

[92gsr]

These threads remind of that great episode from the Simpsons (season 7, I believe) in which Poochie the Rockin' Dog is added to the Itchy and Scratchy show. The Comic Book Guy and Bart have a chat about ungrateful internet nerds complaining about the show. Bart valiantly defends the show's producers and all the Comic Book Guy has to say in response is "Worst Episode Ever."

People come into these threads, proclaim that they won't buy an item unless it's below cost (after all, retailors are meant to serve them at the expense of making a profit), and when their coveted item is not at the price they're willing to pay, they post a rant as if some buyer at a major retailor will somehow react, apologize, and sell items at a loss just because. Another common comment is the "Screw FS/BB! I buy all of my stuff from Amazon.com." Good for you, but I've been doing this for years and so have hundreds of thousands of other Canadians.

Boxing Day is still a good time of the year to get deals, particularly for higher-end merchandise. This site is obviously catered toward male technology enthusiasts, but you know, some of us still like to dress nicely or find it unfeasible to buy a couch from Amazon.com.

All the haters can flame me, but at least if you're one of the Boxing Day whiners, you're reading this thread and reading my rant about you.

[arberb]

You guys are acting like there is no good deals. There are few, the whole stores are not going to be on sale obviously. Just the stuff they want to get rid off.

[oakjefferson]

honestly, I think Boxing week being dead is partly a good thing, and partly optics. The internet has changed the competitive landscape, so some of the issue is that the deals are stronger year round than they used to be, hence the gap between those sales and Boxing Day (still need to make money) is smaller - ESPECIALLY if you're an RFDer and know pretty much any deal in the market at any given time from someone posting. In addition, it's a bit of a "I used to walk 4 miles uphill each way" syndrome - without the internet 10 years ago it was tough to get a grasp just how good the deals were - either against comp or history for the last year. I doubt the deals were as blockbuster as you remember them being.

Also - only have to discount as much as is needed to sell. If the sheep line up, why change?

[BigJonsson]

Oh nice the annual boxing day is dead thread celebrating it's 10 year anniversary. I was wondering when this would show up, it's usually after 5 flyers are posted but for some reason this year it was more like 10 flyers. This thread organically grows in parallel with the negative comments in individual sales threads. (i.e. "wallet safe", "Not hot", etc...). Then come Dec 24th at 7pm you will see the birth of the annual "I hate Future Shop" thread when their servers inexplicably fail under the web traffic load created by....who knows right..not like there were any deals?! Everyone complained about the dealless deals so it's definitely not RFDers crashing the sites.

Wait, who is crashing these sites then? Riiiight it's the thousands of RFDers posting in these store sale threads they first bitched and moaned about, making them grow to thousands and thousands of posts such as:
"Item X has finally been restocked"
"I managed to pick up a X"
"Order Confirmed"
"How long did it take you to get the confirmation email?"
"I managed to pick up X, Y & Z"
"They were out of X so I guess I'm lining up at 5am on the 26th (insert sad face of choice)"
...
...
...

So there you have it folks...a summary of every boxing day for the last 10 years. Don't believe me? Head to the archives to read the long version for a great laugh.

From a retailer standpoint; if it ain't broken then don't try to fix it.

Pretty much sums up RFD on Dec 24 every year lol

[SurplusPlus]

Everyone's physical and virtual mailboxes are bursting with flyers and promotions that disproves any contention that 'Boxing Day is Dead'.

It's a play on the old joke 'That place is so busy that nobody goes there any more.'

This site is home to extreme consumers, bargain hounds, etc. Such people are acutely aware of how frequent and persistent sales and discounts actually are, so we tend to know that Boxing Day isn't the only time to find a deal. But the majority of buyers (and vendors) still see boxing week as a big deal. And since we're both here talking about it, we pretty much confirm their belief.

[faridk89]

last year I got a sweet deal on a acer tablet so not sure what you guys expect boxing day to be, maybe you expect retailers to hand their products out for free?

[MikeAK]

Boxing day hasn't been the same for atleast 10 years. That being said, I feel really bad for the suckers who wait in line. If you really need a tv, buy it on the online sale and pay the $50 shipping or less. That way you don't wait 12 hours in line. Time is money. And there hasn't been a sale worth any line up in the cold. Especially when you are not even guaranteed to buy it.

I give kudos to FS/BB (and other online retailers) for making it easier by being able to buy stuff online. They have had some good deals thanks to free shipping (and sometimes with paid shipping) in recent years. Beats lining up.

I agree, Scott. It's been about 10years since the good ol A&B Sound crazy boxing day sales. Gone are those days. I also agree with you about the online shopping from BB/FS. While the deals are nowhere near as good as they use to be. At least we can cherry pick those few items online and sleep in boxing day.