Black Friday promises the thrill of a bargain. But for Canadians keeping a close eye on their budgets, a good deal starts with something they need - and a price they can trust.
Canadians planning to shop this year’s sales events have set aside an average of $530. Nearly two-thirds of that budget is going toward essentials and lower-priced items. Shoppers are also looking closely at the deals themselves, even as GenAI changes how some find and compare products.
BCG surveyed 1,000 Canadian consumers as part of its 2026 Black Friday Consumer Study, conducted across ten countries. The Canadian findings reveal three truths and a myth about the year-end shopping season.
Truth: Essentials Come First in Canadians’ Black Friday Basket
Black Friday may be known for big-ticket splurges, but Canadian shoppers are spending most of their budgets on everyday needs and low-ticket purchases. Essentials account for 38% of planned spending, and lower-priced products for another 24%. Together, they make up 62% of the average Black Friday budget, leaving about a third of the budget for higher-ticket purchases. (See Exhibit 1.)
The average Canadian budget is 9% below the survey average and 21% below the $670 planned by US shoppers. Most of that difference comes from big-ticket items. Spending priorities also vary by income. Higher earners are more focused on expensive items, while lower earners are concentrating on essentials and relying more on savings and debt to fund purchases, consistent with trends observed throughout the year.
For larger purchases, Canadians are looking for offers that make the price easier to manage. Deep discounts remain a favourite, but storewide promotions, flash sales, free or reduced shipping, and bundles also appeal. One in three shoppers plans to use flexible payment options during this year’s sales events, giving them another way to spread the cost of a bigger purchase.
The retailers best placed to win a larger share of the basket will plan for the mix of purchases most relevant to their customers, using essentials and lower-priced items to establish value where possible, while being intentional about the customer segments and portions of the budget they target.
Truth: Canadians Want Proof the Deal Is Real
Canadians are wary of discounts they cannot verify. Fewer than half trust a marked-down price at face value, compared to 62% of US consumers surveyed. Four verifiable cues consistently help earn their confidence, across all consumers: money-back guarantees or free returns, a retailer’s reputation, clear comparisons between regular and sale prices, and reviews from verified buyers. Each gives shoppers something they can check before they pay.
Pressure and persuasion are less convincing overall, although there is an emerging generational divide. All age groups prefer verifiable signals, but Gen Z and Millennials do consider scarcity messages or influencer recommendations to be positive signals of value whereas Gen X and Boomers feel the opposite. For example, in the survey’s net trust score - the percentage who say a cue increases trust minus the percentage who say it decreases trust - an influencer recommendation scores +21% among Gen Z, but -32% among Boomers. (See Exhibit 2.)
These findings can prompt retailers to look deeper into which signals build trust among key consumer audiences and which erode it. Conversion will depend on pairing evidence shoppers can verify with signals tailored to the audiences receiving them.
Truth: GenAI Has a Bigger Say in What Younger Canadians Buy
Nine in ten Canadians who have used GenAI while shopping say it has helped them. Across all Canadian shoppers, 46% are now using it for the sales events or plan to, with younger shoppers taking it up quickly. The combined share of Gen Z and Millennials using GenAI for shopping has doubled over the past year to 25%, while use among Gen X and Boomers has held steady at 10%. (See Exhibit 3.)
For now, Canadians are mainly using GenAI for inspiration, product and deal discovery, and comparison, much as they might use a flyer and a second browser tab. Interest continues to grow, however, with the share intending to use GenAI more in their shopping up 8 percentage points from last year.
AI is also beginning to influence what Canadians buy. Nine percent of shoppers say GenAI has led them to a purchase decision, rising as high as 13% among Millennials. And 6% say they would allow AI to place an order without reviewing it first.
Shoppers trust AI assistants most when they find products that match their needs, compare prices across retailers, and evaluate competing features. For retailers, that makes accurate and accessible product information increasingly valuable. Prices, availability, ratings, return policies, and promotional claims need to be current and consistent across channels. That consistency helps the human shopper and, increasingly, the AI intermediary working on the shopper’s behalf. Retailers that have already invested in generative engine optimization have a head start. Products that AI tools cannot find or interpret risk being left off shoppers’ shortlists.
Myth: The Flyer Is Dead in Canada
Asked which channels lead them to a purchase decision, 29% of shoppers cite in-store advertising and 21% cite flyers, compared to 13% for Instagram and 11% for TikTok. Offline channels play a larger role in Canada than in any other country surveyed, including the United States. Their appeal is especially strong among older shoppers. Among Gen X, 35% name in-store advertising and 28% name flyers; among Boomers, roughly a third cite each. (See Exhibit 4.)
These same older shoppers are also among Amazon’s biggest users. Amazon is the leading shopping channel influencing purchase decisions in every age group, making it a competitive threat to Canadian retailers that cuts across generations. It is named by 39% of Canadians overall, with its influence rising from 34% of Gen Z to 45% of Boomers.
Younger shoppers are more likely to turn to Instagram and TikTok than older generations, but social media is losing ground as a source of discovery, down 12 percentage points in Canada from last year. This is a steeper drop than the global average. Canadians of every age discover products in different places and decide in the same few places, the store, the flyer, and the Amazon listing, where a price can be checked against another price.
For Canadian retailers, success comes from turning a presence across multiple channels into a deliberate strategy to compete, including with Amazon. That requires orchestrating the channel mix most relevant to the generations they are trying to reach, with the kinds of value messages that resonate.
Winning This Season and the Ones to Come
Retailers need to plan for the current mix of spending, which may be different from what they may have expected from Black Friday. That means adjusting course wherever possible to reflect what shoppers are looking for and making savings clear enough to withstand scrutiny.
Beyond the holiday season, these changing habits present an opportunity to build stronger customer relationships. Retailers that understand what Canadians value, reach them through the channels they trust, surface clearly and credibly in GenAI-driven discovery, and make it easier to shop with confidence can earn their business long after the Black Friday sales end.
