Attention last-minute shoppers. Wal-Mart Canada plans to open its stores round the clock next week to cater to holiday buying blitzes and hopefully bump up year-end sales.
The move affects 51 select stores from Monday through Dec. 24.
Adam Finn, a marketing professor at the University of Alberta, said while the 24-blitzes are new to Canada, they're common in the U.S., where two-thirds of Wal-Marts have those extended hours.
Finn said the 24-hour strategy could pose a serious threat to competitors.
"It might have some effect on people who compete more directly with Wal-Mart, like Zellers and Canadian Tire, in terms of forcing them to think about longer hours," Finn said.
Stores including Indigo and Loblaws have already extended their hours to accommodate holiday shoppers.
Vi Konkle, Wal-Mart Canada's chief operating officer, said the decision to keep stores open all the time was consumer driven.
"Last year, many of our off-hour customers told us that this was a meaningful change of business, that we actually made a difference in their holiday experience," Konkle said in a release. "At the same time, many people showed up just for novelty of visiting Wal-Mart in the wee hours."
Gige Pucci, a manager of Wal-Mart at South Edmonton Common, said an extended-hours trial in nine stores last year was a success.
"It's taking that level of service to our customer to another level, and last year it was well received," Pucci said. "[We] now have moved it to 51 stores, and we extended it from 72 hours to 144 hours."
Barb Hermary, who works at the South Edmonton Common plaza, said she's signed up for the graveyard shift out of curiosity.
"I want to see what brings everybody in at that hour at two or three o'clock in the morning when you should be home sleeping," she said.
Wal-Mart has struggled with flagging sales, reporting a 0.1 per cent drop in same-store sales for November.
A mix of problems has plagued the discount store, including high gas prices that hurt its lower-income customers' disposable income.
The company has begun to re-evaluate its product lines with plans to reduce its distribution of the clothing line Metro 7 in the new year.
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