Black Friday can be a stressful but rewarding time for local businesses

Black Friday is almost here and that means big savings for customers, lots of sales for businesses and a potentially stressful time for all involved.

According to the CEO of the Greater Saskatoon Chamber of Commerce, Darla Lindbjerg, this particular day — which usually features massive price cuts on products — can go one of two ways for local businesses.

“If they have an online platform or they are prepared, that can be a great opportunity for local businesses to create an event out of these days and make it their own,” she said.

“Sales are not necessarily bad things for businesses because they operate based on volume and scale so if they are selling more items and they are prepared to sell more items, they actually can end up at the end of the day with a better outcome.”

According to Lindbjerg, there is always demand from businesses and customers for more days that promote shopping. That’s one of the reasons Black Friday, originally an American tradition, was adopted by Canada.

“I think anytime people have access to deals and businesses have access to additional customer bases, you’re going to have a match — I wouldn’t say made in heaven, but you’re going to have a match,” she said.

“You’re always going to have different holidays added and different commerce opportunities added to an economy and this is one that people have chosen to adopt and it seems to be growing.”

Because of the amount of proactive shoppers out there, Lindbjerg believes Black Friday could, one day soon, become a bigger commerce day than Boxing Day.