Boxing Day Discussion Archive

Boxing Day has lost its luster

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Deal Addict
Mar 2, 2005
2033 posts
334 upvotes

Boxing Day has lost its luster

Just feels like it, some years ago, the forums used to be flooded with hot deals coming up. Now it seems everyone has a thread asking if they have found a deal? Face With Tears Of Joy

Also, it appears lot of weekly sales deals have been re-hashed to make it look like Boxing Day deals even when they are not. I also don't see massive count downs and timers posted on websites like Black Friday. Even though Black Friday is not an official holiday it seems to have a ton more momentum than Boxing Day. I strolled the mall with my young family last night and I did not see the kind of posters and signs I had noticed on BF. I was in Richmond, BC Canada.

I looked briefly through the flyers this AM, hoping to scout some deals on sound bars and some other items. Don't see anything out of the ordinary, or something I'd not seen any other time of the year.

IMO, the golden days of Boxing Day were during the rise of computers/electronics. Everyone was trying to get a desktop or a projection screen TV for their home. Things were expensive back then, margins were huge and discounts were deep. Heck even mobile carriers gave away real stuff like digital cameras and few hundred in gift cards.

Glory days are gone, I don't expect Boxing Day to make a return anytime soon. Until baby boomers and retail is surviving, we will continue to see some push for Boxing Day, otherwise Millenials are going to check out and do their Cyber clicks on BF and CM and call it a year.

Let me know if you notice the same. Just wanted to have a polite thoughtful discussion about this. I am just posting my observations and would love to listen to yours.

Stay safe everyone and have a very Merry Christmas.
81 replies
Deal Expert
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Dec 19, 2001
31347 posts
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Fernando Poo
Lost its luster a long time ago (at least ten years).
Welcome to the Minitrue FDs, Ficdep
Newbie
Dec 23, 2013
50 posts
37 upvotes
Brampton
The reason for this is simple. It is the advent of gift cards. Why put epic sales on when billions of dollars worth of cards were just gifted the day before?
Deal Expert
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Mar 9, 2007
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Think of the Childre…
Yep! Wallet safe.

WOULD SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!
Deal Addict
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Aug 26, 2008
1439 posts
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Winnipeg
Deal Grabber wrote: Things were expensive back then, margins were huge and discounts were deep. Heck even mobile carriers gave away real stuff like digital cameras and few hundred in gift cards.
this is the key right here. it's not that the deals during boxing day suck, it's that the deals during the other 364 days of the year have gotten so much better.

if you're willing to wait, and are an active member of these forums year round, there is no question that you can find as good or better deals during the rest of the year. the ONE thing boxing day has going for it right now(and this can be said for BF as well), is that people know when it's happening, and are prepared for it. so it's a lot easier for the average person.

it's also a lot easier for the retailers. they know that there will be 10 000 people walking through their store, and far more visiting their website. people who are actively looking to spend their money. So it's more about the perception of a good deal these days.

the smart shopper will continue to buy when the retailers are desperate to sell, rather than when the consumers are eager to buy. That USED to be boxing day, i mean who is shopping a day after they got a ton of presents and spend all their money? nobody would, except for the expectation of deals.

I suspect boxing day will have to die before it can ever become good again. we need people to stop buying things for several years in a row to entice retailers to do the 'clearance' pricing sales again. When they were taking losses on products just to try and get you in the door. Black Friday will continue to grow. IMO it's always made a lot more sense, as a consumer, to have a chance to score some deals in November buying presents for others. Boxing day is too late to buy for other people, and if i'm buying for myself, i have no problem doing it any time of the year

It's been 'boring' for many years, but I will admit, this year seems especially dull. In years past, even thought I haven't been excited or found anything worth buying, it still felt like the forums were pretty active. There like 30 boxing day threads with more than 1 reply right now...

that being said, i still ended up buying a micro SD card, and i'm planning on buying the blendtec for 299. they both seemed like good sale prices to me. not omg, stand in line prices, but competitive with any other sale price i've seen (and maybe i've missed better since i haven't been actively shopping for either product).

it was fun back in the day, waking up at 5am to buy a newspaper to look at deals and start planning your day, then discovering this website that 'leaked' the deals early, so you could be lined up by 5am and have the 'inside advantage', haha. it was a fun family tradition for 4 or 5 years in a row, and i do miss that aspect.

i think the year i gave up, or at least when it lost it's magic for me, was when i bought my first mid/high end receiver. I went into the store pre-xmas and negotiated a deal with one of the employees, but he said i could only get that price during boxing week, so i had to wait. I ended up lining up and getting in very early on boxing day, picked up the receiver and happily went home. I was curious though, being it wasn't advertised or anything, and ended up going back in a couple days later. Sure enough, there were still plenty left. It was the next year, when my brother bought a high end RPTV on xmas eve that clinched it. He ended up getting it for several hundred less than the 'sale price' on boxing day. after that, it became more and more clear that the best time to shop is when nobody else is buying things, especially if you're going to haggle with somebody that works on commission!
Deal Addict
May 1, 2018
1734 posts
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Vancouver
A lot of retailers have similar, if not pricier tag lines for items that they were also selling during Black Friday weekend I've noticed.
Deal Addict
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Aug 26, 2008
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Winnipeg
sandmanrm wrote: The reason for this is simple. It is the advent of gift cards. Why put epic sales on when billions of dollars worth of cards were just gifted the day before?
gift cards aren't new, and i don't believe the cause of this.

online shopping is far more to blame. not only how easy it is to comparison shop, but it's vastly reduced the profit margins of most products. electronics used to have massive markups. you could walk into a store, and get 10% off simply for asking in most cases. what did they care, that $3000 tv you just bought for $2700 only cost them $2000 anyway. But we are living in a world of commodity priced electronics now. where it's cheaper to buy a new one than repair what you already have. when there's only a couple hundred bux between the cost and regular selling price, you can't expect 50% off clearance sales anymore.

but i would argue the NUMBER ONE reason boxing day has gotten worse, is because of the shift between supply and demand. It USED to be that retailers had a large supply clogging up their physical stores, and very little demand since everybody was all shopped out. New stuff is about to roll out and they needed space to display and store it. So retailers were forced to cut prices, sometimes to the point of losing money, simply so they could get rid of it. Today, the supply is far less of an issue, since it's more common to ship things from a large central warehouse, so stores aren't as concerned about being stuck with 'old product' for a few months. and the demand is through the roof. I would argue that aside from BF(and this is only the last few years) boxing day has been the most profitable day of the year for decades. I remember one year going to Krazy Krazy and all the employees were doing was putting stickers on customer's boxes to claim the commission.

simply put,
-when customers want to buy, and retailers have effectively managed their stock, prices stay high
-when retailers stocked too much and need to sell quick, but consumers aren't shopping prices go down
Moderator
User avatar
Sep 30, 2001
30161 posts
10147 upvotes
Toronto
hate to pile on, but i think this is the first year for me where boxing day has jumped the shark. black friday is far more exciting.
Be kind and civil with one another
Banned
Feb 7, 2005
4498 posts
1191 upvotes
MrDisco wrote: hate to pile on, but i think this is the first year for me where boxing day has jumped the shark. black friday is far more exciting.
Both days in Canada suck . There are many sales during the year that match these days without the hipe .
<sig removed> by moderators . Yet no moderator told me they removed or why ?
Deal Fanatic
Jan 18, 2003
6485 posts
2389 upvotes
Mississauga
i feel black Friday destroyed boxing Day...bf had equal or better deals... enough said.
Deal Addict
Dec 27, 2007
4867 posts
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Edmonton
It's boxing day right now here and noone gives a damn. No lineups or anything haha.
Same thing as black Friday. US and Canada black Friday had terrible deals, nothing good.
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Mar 7, 2004
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Mississauga
I bought a Jabra Elite 65T from Best Buy. Was cheaper on special $169 inc tax. Go from there.
Deal Expert
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Jan 12, 2017
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Scarberia
remember the SIG electronic boxing days, where someone tent and slept out! lol good old days! , now BFs are just POSs
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Sr. Member
Sep 23, 2006
674 posts
829 upvotes
Long gone are the days of lining up in front of stores like A&B Sound, where you could find amazing deals at the time. I went into Hudson's Bay yesterday and they already had their "Boxing Day" prices up and available for purchase.
Deal Guru
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Mar 12, 2005
11679 posts
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Victoria
I think boxing day used to be a day for companies to clearout their extra Christmas inventory. If they didn't get rid of it then they were stuck holding it.

Now companies are a lot better with inventory management so there's no need to have deep cuts on prices :(
Deal Addict
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Aug 30, 2005
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GTA
i remember the days when I used to line up early for door crashers at staples with my dad, we would wake up at 530 to get in line for opening doors.

We would scope out the floors days before to ensure we mapped out where we wanted to go.
Deal Expert
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Mar 9, 2007
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Think of the Childre…
Technology these days changes everything....no more good ol' times.

WOULD SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!

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