Boxing Day: What's Hot?

True to my word, I headed out to busy Yonge St. in downtown Toronto for some Boxing Day shopping. One thing's for sure: shopping still remains a very popular pasttime in Canada! Despite my earlier skepticism about the quality of "deals", there were in fact tons of great ones, and plenty of people out and about to take advantage of them.

Among the most noteworthy in the consumer electronics sector: selected DVDs for $5 and high-definition DVDs (both Blu-ray and HD DVD formats) for $20; and a whopping 1 TB external hard drive (from a reputable brand) for $200! Like we recently saw in the U.S., Toshiba's older version HD DVD player was available for $99 (they were all gone by the time I made it out to the stores). However, the HD DVD add-on player for the Xbox 360 was also available for $150 - $50 less than it's regular price, and it came bundled with a free HD DVD.

Of course, flat-panels were available for excellent prices, with many retailers advertising 42" models for just $1,000. Portable GPS devices were also "hot" items on holiday shoppers' wish lists.

The online arena was just as flooded with consumer traffic. In fact, Amazon.ca reported experiencing its busiest holiday season in five years! In DVD, the online retailer's best seller was Planet Earth: The Complete Series (no surprise, given that it was an Oprah pick); while Josh Groban's Christmas album Noel topped the music sales (kudos to Mr. Groban for managing to out-sell all other artists with a seasonal album!) Super Mario Galaxy for the Nintendo Wii topped gamer purchases; while Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0 was the best-selling software.

Amazon's "most wished for" list echoed the purchases, although the Nintendo Wii console itself was the most coveted video gaming item; and Apple's Mac OS X Version 10.5 Leopard was the most desired piece of software.

As earlier predicted, most retailers will continue deals through to the end of the week. Enjoy!

[Photo courtesy of http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/].