CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. — This was a 12-coffee day for Bill Harper.
The store manager of Best Buy in Charlottetown was in work early Friday – ridiculously early – to prepare for the 6 a.m. opening for a long day of Boxing Day mayhem.
“Six a.m. is pretty high energy,’’ said Harper.
“We get everyone pumped up. We usually do our Best Buy cheer to get everyone going, get the blood flowing. Everybody has their different vices. Some people are coffee, some people are Red Bull. Whatever it took to get a little bit of extra go this morning.’’
Harper expected to down at least a dozen cups of coffee “easy’’, well surpassing the usual seven coffees he consumes on a regular day. He was in charge from opening to what he called a “soft’’ close of 9 p.m. meaning “when the customers leave’’.
Harper said people started lining up outside on the cold Friday morning a good hour before the store opened for business.
Roughly 100 people swarmed into the store as soon as it opened. A few hundred other shoppers made their way up and down the aisles by 9 a.m.
By close on Friday, noted Harper, the Boxing Day business may have generated close to the equivalent of sales over a regular full week.
Staff numbering about 30, compared with the 10 or 15 that man the store on a regular day, did their best at Best Buy to help the throngs of shoppers with their enthusiastic purchasing.
“You can buy a lot of this stuff online, but it’s more for people that still want to come out and do the physical shopping: look and feel and touch and see and listen,’’ said Harper.
“And a lot of people still work regular jobs at 8 a.m. or 7 a.m. or 9 a.m. So, it really gives them a chance to get out and get their stuff with everybody else.’’
Robin Goss, 53, of Charlottetown used to be among the early bargain-hunting birds looking to snatch a well-priced product well before the crack of dawn.
He recalls lining up at 6 a.m. a decade ago outside this electronics store when it was called Future Shop.
This year, he came to Best Buy at around 8 a.m. to purchase a 50-inch screen TV for only $350.
Best Buy was just one of the planned stops for him and his buddy on Boxing Day. A visit to Canadian Tire and Mark’s was also on the agenda.
“We usually just drop in to stores…just float around and see if there is anything we can add to the house that is affordable,’’ said Goss.
Justin Ford of Charlottetown arrived at Best Buy Friday just before 9 a.m. with his young daughter in tow, looking to buy a gaming monitor. His Boxing Day outing was likely to amount to one-stop shopping.
“This is the main stop,’’ he said.
Harper said some customers come into the store, flyer in hand knowing exactly what they want to buy and at what advertised discounted price.
“I would say there are some people that are out on Boxing Day that probably go out and have a coffee and they may not even purchase (any products),’’ he added.
“They like the lustre of Boxing Day.”
