Retails Sales in January up

Donoreo

“The Canadian retail landscape has kicked off 2025 with a remarkably strong performance, showcasing resilience and adaptability in the face of ongoing economic uncertainties. StatCan All Stores sales have surged by 6.4% YOY, with a robust 5.6% YOY for discretionary spending with All Stores Less Automotive, Food, and Pharmacies. This impressive start can be attributed to a perfect storm of factors, including government stimulus cheques in Ontario, the tax holiday nationally, and consumer behaviour driven by fear of American tariffs.”

https://retail-insider.com/retail-insider/2025/03/canadian-retail-sales-surge-to-start-2025/

mrweather

Sounds like we front-loaded a lot of activity which we’ll pay for down the road when things slow down.

Hydraglass

Makes me wonder a little bit how much people ditching online shopping from US sources and going back to shopping locally may have to do with this – I know historically we would buy $300-$500/mo in stuff online from US sources and suppliers the last decade or so and now we haven’t spent one red cent online from US shopping since early February and we’re finding places in Canada (locally if possible) even if significantly more expensive to get the stuff. That’s probably a 20% increase in domestic store spending for us.

urbanriot

Hydraglass

we’re finding places in Canada (locally if possible) even if significantly more expensive to get the stuff.

Can you give me examples of that? I don’t know anyone “finding” local places in my neck of the woods but I’m interested to hear how folks deeper into Canada might be.

A lot of rumours, innuendos, and agenda-driven-lies by locals coupled with facts have affected some people who often shop and dine across the border but I haven’t heard of anyone adjusting their buying patterns aside from that. All the Amazon crazies I know are still ordering piles of goods on Amazon regardless of the country of origin and sending them back if they don’t match their needs (a habit that drives me up the wall and probably drives up our Amazon fees) and everyone buying goods are basically buying whatever looks good and comes through at the right price.

Hydraglass

urbanriot For example we buy Karate supplies for our son every month - new belts, gloves, kamas, jackets etc - at the very least every other month or so - we had been buying direct from Century USA – now we are buying them from a local Karate supplies shop in town - they are about 50% more expensive - but thats fine. My wife teaches music, we used to order the text books direct from a music company in Ohio - now we are ordering them through our local Long and McQuade. We bought my other sons last few pairs of hockey skates from eBay from a US seller, this time we went and bought them locally at Play It Again sports. In the fall I bought two pairs of stretch canvas pants from Klim direct from the US, last month I needed 2 more pairs - I bought from Marks in-store instead. We’ve also probably cut back our Amazon purchases by about 75-80% - in 2024 we had 189 orders, about one every other day. We’ve had 4 total since February 1st and 3 of those were for things made in Canada (2 were different supplements my wife takes made by “Now!” which is Canadian made, a box of Philips candelabra LED bulbs made in Taiwan, and a new ice scraper for my car made in Canada). In general the US is probably close to $500/mo short from our house since early Feb.

urbanriot

Hydraglass

we are buying them from a local Karate supplies shop in town

Unique product! I imagine the products are not fabricated in Canada and are probably made in a foreign country regardless of whether or not you purchase from the local company or Century USA but good for the local company to get your business.

we are ordering them through our local Long and McQuade

… i didn’t even realize they were a Canadian chain since I see them everywhere! I’m not sure if this will be an industry that where a change will be visible for ‘buy Canadian’ since I can’t recall seeing an American chain in Canada that carries the same products (at least not around here). However I can honestly say I’d probably continue to buy a lot of the effects equipment I’ve purchased online, online, because they’re not competitive with price. Maybe that will change with tariffs?

a box of Philips candelabra LED bulbs

Hah, unrelated I’ve been buying incandescent bulbs off Amazon (.com not .ca) because I can’t seem to find them in stores here in Canada for more than the past decade. Our flood lights as well, we have a three way system where the middle light is a high intensity LED but the side two are halogens which we also can’t get in Canada. If I could get halogens in Canada I’d love to give my local Home Hardware the business but sadly they’re banned.

I have purchased most of my LEDs in Canadian stores and had a lengthy post about my adventures in CanChat but I’ve since moved to Amazon because I can’t get the higher wattage LEDs in local Canadian stores like Home Depot, Home Hardware, Lowes, etc..

I wonder if perhaps retail sales in Canada would increase if we had more choices like we can get on Amazon or alternative online outlets?

I genuinely want to provide more of my business to retail sales in Canada but the truth of the matter it’s hard to get the products and the price isn’t competitive with global outlets.