Saskatchewan

Boxing Day sales not such a great deal, says Regina business owner

While many retailers rely on Boxing Day sales to get customers through the door, one Regina business owner explains why he never opens his store on the day.

Music shop owner never opens Boxing Day, prefers to give employees day off

B Sharp Music owner Craig Martin says it's rare that retail employees get back-to-back days off, so he'd rather leave his store closed for both Christmas and Boxing Day. (Google Maps)

The owner of a Regina music store says Boxing Day isn't the big sales draw it was a decade ago. And that's OK with him — he doesn't open his shop on Boxing Day anyway.

Craig Martin owns B Sharp Music, and for the last three decades, his store has never been open on Christmas or Boxing Day.

With other big sales days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, he says he just prefers to give his employees a couple of extra days off.

"In retail, you very rarely get a long weekend, or two days off back-to-back," he said.

And he says in his business, there's not much point in Boxing Day sales anyway.

"Literally, everything's on sale every day of the year, so there's not much extra fat to trim when it comes to Boxing Day sales either," he said.

"It's just something we've never done. I don't know if we've missed out on it or not but we'll continue to close Boxing Day."

He thinks there's no reason someone can't do their shopping on Dec. 27.

Sales down

In general, every day has been slow for the last year, Martin said.

He thinks the reasons may include the economy, online shopping and a waning interest in buying musical instruments.

A lot of B Sharp's customers are teachers, who are searching for students themselves, Martin added.

"It just seems to be a bit of a downturn in our industry at the moment."

He said when the employees come back for work on Tuesday, the same sales will be available as any other day.

With files from Micki Cowan