Black Friday

Though Black Friday is recent to Canada it has been a tradition in our media to review the many videos of the insanity happening down south.

Most Canadians usually watch these, amazed and confused as to why this madness happens, especially since the commercialization of the internet.

The last time I stood in line for hours for a sale was in the early 2000’s, on boxing day. And I eventually got what I wanted later on in the day, when the stores where less busy.

These days I usually spend my boxing days surfing for deals instead. And today I’ve found a few online at the stores I had listed in a blog entry yesterday night.

I also browsed some of the American sites, calculator at hand, to find deals there on CDs, DVDs and Blu-Rays.

The major drawback in ordering from the States is that their shipping and handling fees are high and they rarely offer free shipping to Canadians. But sometimes the reduction in price offsets the shipping and handling costs, making a purchase worthwhile.

I’ve taken advantage of deep discounts from Alibris, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, J&R Computer/Music World and The Space Store numerous times, generally for purchases valued at $20 to maximize the savings.

Purchases valued at under $20 are not subject to duties and taxes. And this is quite important if your purchase is being shipped to you via a courier like UPS, whose customs brokering fees can gobble up some of those savings.

If your order’s value is higher than $20 I recommend that you try to have it shipped to you by the United States Postal Service, that way the customs broker will be Canada Post. This reduces the costs considerably.

Another option would be to order from the U.K , from companies like Alibris UK, Amazon UK, and , whose postage fees are more reasonable because they use Royal Mail. And Royal Mail parcels are also handled by Canada Post.

You will of course note that many DVDs and blu-rays sold in the U.K are incompatible with our equipment. Region 2 DVDs and Region B Blu-Rays are not compatible whilst Region Free DVDs and Blu-Rays are. And these companies do sell the occasional Region 1 DVD and Region A Blu-ray, which are the formats that are common to North America.

BTW, our dollar is stronger than the American dollar at the moment and a pound is approximately 60 cents higher than the Canadian dollar at the moment, not including the credit card foreign currency fee.