Attention holiday Wal-Mart shoppers: stores to open round the clock
Last Updated: Thursday, November 27, 2008 | 12:03 PM ET
CBC News
Most of Wal-Mart Canada's stores will be operating 24 hours a day throughout the holiday shopping season.
The move, announced Thursday, is an extension of its four-year-old program of keeping certain stores open round the clock from Dec. 1 to Christmas Eve, and during the back-to-school shopping season.
What's new this year is the number of stores open for the entire period starting Monday and running to Dec 24.
Last year, just 50 of the chain's 310 Canadian stores remained open. This year there will be 192, said Wal-Mart Canada spokesman Kevin Groh.
"It's fairly standard in the U.S. and other markets around the world," said Groh. "There seems to be a great fascination every time we do it [in Canada] because it's not what people expect."
The only exception is Quebec, where provincial laws limit the number of hours a day a retail store can operate. The chain's 52 Quebec stores will maintain regular business hours.
Earlier this month, Brampton, Ont.-based Loblaws announced its Great Canadian Superstores across Western Canada will again be opening 24 hours a day from Dec. 5 to Dec. 23. In addition, most Extra Food stores will extend their hours to 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. ET.
Groh insisted Wal-Mart Canada's move to extend its 24-hour program was not in reaction to reported plummeting consumer confidence. Last year, the chain attracted new customers to overnight shopping that they would not have otherwise seen.
"There's a spike very late at night and very early in the morning. Through the balance of the night, it's pretty quiet," he said.
Earlier this month, a national retail survey suggested Canadians plan to dedicate an average of $571 to holiday spending — down from $663 in 2007.
Seventy per cent of respondents in the Maritz Research survey reported they planned to pay for their purchases using cash over debit cards.
The survey of 2,072 Canadians suggested many consumers would be shopping at big-box stores, including Wal-Mart and Canadian Tire.
The survey's margin of error is 2.15 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
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