Supply chain issues and COVID shift Calgary shopping trends

Calgary retailers will have to balance online and in-person shopping as the pandemic continues.

“So it’s more of a complementary kind of process now than it’s ever been, and we’ve forever changed our shopping patterns, COVID has changed that forever,” said President and CEO of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce Deborah Yedlin.

“It used to be that you go to a store and the online option was kind of like the last resort and now it’s flipped a bit.”

Yedlin explains stocking shelves is another challenge facing retailers, as supply chain issues persist.

“What consumers will want to do is if they can’t find what they’re looking for they’ll look for ways to get on a waiting list either at the store or through an online portal so that they can get what they’re looking for at some point,” she said.

The Better Business Bureau (BBB) says anybody heading online to search for must-have products and toys, should go slow and do their research.

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In toy scams, for example, you could be browsing for a ‘hot ticket item’ when miraculously a website is offering exactly what you’re looking for, potentially at a discounted rate.

“Very popular items, get sometimes counterfeited, that’s why BBB encourages people to go to reputable retailers and shop from reputable sites,” said Wes Lafortune, a media and communications specialist with BBB, serving southern Alberta and East Kootenay.

“So all of the sudden you’re getting a delivery of something that really is substandard or the delivery doesn’t happen at all, the product doesn’t even exist, it’s simply a scam.”

If your package does arrive, you should be aware of another trend, package thefts.

“So I certainly would say we would probably expect to see an uptick at this time of year, with package thefts, just because we’ve always seen that year on year,” said Sgt. Nick Whilsher with Calgary Police Crime Prevention.

Whilsher says at the start of COVID they saw an uptick in this type of crime with more consumers ordering online. Now, he says package thefts remain fairly steady with spikes at certain points in the year, such as during the holidays.

“For a lot of these offenders, they think it’s an easy way of actually being able to obtain something, and hopefully find something that they can either sell-on, or that will benefit them,” he said.

Whilsher says prevention of this crime is heavily reliant on Calgarians doing their part by tracking shipments, picking up products in-store, or by installing visible CCTV cameras.

From a DM

"In Dover, yesterday. Stealing packages by bike. Hope he likes his pink Walkman"#yyc pic.twitter.com/UA0W8xOcfT

— cm (@cmcalgary) December 1, 2021

“We’ve also spoken with a lot of the firms that do the deliveries,” he said.

“Their drivers are more aware that if they think that there’s something suspicious happening, they’ll either contact their depot or sometimes they’ll contact the police directly and just let us know that they think somebody is following them on their routes.”

Lafortune adds you can monitor scams in your community in real-time by visiting the scam tracker on their website.

“If you can’t find the hottest toy, that’s okay, you can find an alternative and maybe something really close to it in Calgary or near where you live,” said Lafortune.