Black Friday sales draw out Sask. deal-hunters

Deal-hunters were out bright and early for Black Friday in Saskatoon and Regina.

Some people said about 100 people were waiting in line at a north Regina Walmart on Rochdale before it opened, waiting to get their hands on the best deals.

“A lot of people were in their cars so we went inside and then the next thing you know, by about 5:30, the inside doors were full,” said Sheila Boehmer who was at the store at 5:20 a.m. to get a spot in line.

The Stonegate Walmart Supercentre off of Clarence Avenue South in Saskatoon also saw about 50 people waiting to get in when staff opened the doors at 6 a.m.

Here at the Clarence Avenue Wal-Mart, where Black Friday has about 50 people taking part in that other Great Canadian passtime: lining up in an orderly fashion. #ckom pic.twitter.com/R4yehc71pf

— Bryn Levy (@BrynLevy) November 24, 2017

Rodney Calette found himself at the front of the line, having arrived at the store shortly after 4 a.m.

“I was up anyways, so why not come?” he said

Calette said he didn’t have any specific items in mind as he got ready to shop.

But that wasn’t the case for many other shoppers who were out for what appears to be one of the hot items for the 2017 holiday season: the Instant Pot programmable pressure cooker.

Jennifer and Wendy were both in line looking to snag Instant Pots for people on their Christmas lists.

While temperatures around 5 C certainly helped, both said they would have been in line regardless of the conditions.

“I’d still be here, I’m a Canadian — I’m used to this tough weather!” Wendy said.

“It’s all about the deal, right?” Jennifer said.

Regina shoppers were also eager to snap up the trendy new kitchen appliance.

“As soon as I walked in there was people grabbing three, four, five in their cart,” said Ricki Friess in Regina. “I didn’t even really want one but because of the sale I was like ‘yup, I’ll get one.’”

Some people said they even prefer Black Friday over traditional Boxing Day sales.

“We used to be Boxing Day shoppers and have actually switched to Black Friday so that Boxing Day we hang out with family, we play games with the kids but this is our shopping day now,” said Damara Brown in Regina

Tracy Read still prefers shopping after Christmas.

“All the Christmas stuff is on sale and usually the deals are even better than Black Friday.”

A 2016 Leger poll commissioned by Vancouver based think-tank DIG360 found that 30 per cent of 1578 Canadians surveyed said they bought at least one Black Friday sale item that year.

—with files from 650 CKOM’s Bryn Levy and 980 CJME’s Britton Gray