After dozens of Prince Albert residents lined up early to take advantage of Boxing Day deals, local businesses are counting the cash brought in on Thursday.
Robert Cormier, manager of the Prince Albert Future Shop, said the “bread and butter” of his store’s Boxing Day promotion; televisions, laptops and tablets, were Thursday’s best selling items.
“We were very successful, we had a great day,” Cormier said of Future Shop’s Boxing Day sales. “We had a better build up then we did in previous years, people were purchasing more prior to Christmas.”
Cormier noted the sale of several Polk audio systems, on which some lucky shoppers saved up to $1,000 off the original price.
Despite the sale of an extensive range of electronics, there were no “Console Wars” in Prince Albert this year. Future Shop did not have the immensely popular Xbox One or PlayStation 4 video game consoles in stock on Thursday.
“Nobody in town had those,” Cormier said of the next generation consoles, adding that the older Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 were available and on sale. “Nobody’s buying them (older consoles), shoppers are waiting for the new ones to come in.”
While Future Shop experienced their fair share of Boxing Day madness, it was generally business as usual at Twilight Framing and Sports Gallery in the Gateway Mall, where Boxing Day sales figures were nothing out of the ordinary.
“We did as well as expected,” said Sports Gallery owner Al Mattice. “Boxing day isn’t the way it once was because all these other businesses stretch it into a whole ‘Boxing Week.’ We didn’t put much on sale because of that.”
Cormier said his best selling items on Thursday were NHL hockey jerseys and 2013 Grey Cup Champion Saskatchewan Roughriders jackets, which were on sale and “moved pretty good.”
“Basically it was just come in and ‘let’s make a deal,” Cormier said of his store’s Boxing Day promotion.
Future Shop, along with several other businesses in Prince Albert, opened their doors early on Thursday. Future Shop opened for business at 6 a.m. with at least 100 people lined up outside.
