Shopping on Boxing Day? Survey shows most Manitobans plan to miss the mall madness

If you're to heading out in search of deals in Manitoba this Boxing Day, a new poll says you're in the minority.

The poll, conducted by Prairie Research Associates (PRA), found less than one in five Manitobans had plans to hit the shops this Dec. 26.

The research company ran a similar poll just after Boxing Day last year, and apparently our deal hunting habits haven't changed much, said PRA partnerNicholas Borodenko.

"We found that 18 per cent of Manitobans expect to [go shopping on Boxing Day], and when we asked the question in January of last year we found that 14 per cent actually had gone shopping," he said.

"So expectations are pretty much in line with actual behaviours."

The poll was part of an omnibus random-digit phone survey of 800 Manitobans, conducted Nov. 2-29.

It found the typical Boxing Day shopper in this province is most likely to be male, with20 per cent saying they planned to check out the deals, and between the ages of 18 and 29, where the likelihoodjumped to32 per cent.

The survey also found that 22 per cent of Winnipeg respondents said they'd hit the stores Boxing Day the highest in the province and that Boxing Day shoppers were more likely to be froma household with an income under $40,000.

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Shoppers were out in full force very early Friday morning jockeying for position outside of malls and other retail shops in Winnipeg.

"Amongthose 18-29 year olds, I think our expectation is that, for holidays, they tend to get gifts that are cash or gift cards as opposed to physical items," said Borodenko. "Our assumption is that those Boxing Day shoppers are just simply using found money from the holidays to go and spend."

"As for the lower income households, that would just simply be that the sales have the most value to those who have the least amount to spend."

'A young person's game'

So who are you least likely to see waiting in line at a sale the day after Christmas?

Borodenko saidolder Manitobans tend to prefer to stay home and avoid the sales.

"If you look at those 65 and older, only eight per cent actually expect to go out Boxing Day shopping," he said. "You can see, as age increases, the percentage of [people] expecting to go Boxing Day shopping goes down significantly."

Borodenko speculated thata number of older people who do plan on shopping on Boxing Day may just be doing so because they're going withtheir children not because they necessarily want to.

"I think what eventually happens too is that, as you get older, you tend to accumulate the things you needed. So the value of what you're looking for tends to decrease," he said.

"You don't need to go and buy that cheap flat-screen TV every single year but among those people 18-to-29 is that group that's potentially buying things for the first time."

"At the end of the day Boxing Day, seems to be sort of a young person's game."