Canadian consumers historically wait until two days before Christmas to make key holiday purchases, according to data from the Interac PIN-debit network and Acxsys Corp.
In 2009, Interac debit cardholders spent C$860 million (US$812 million or 568 million euros) making purchases at brick-and-mortar stores on Dec. 23. Transaction volume that day reached 16.1 million. Both figures represented December’s busiest shopping day.
Interac released the data to help predict how this holiday season will play out. However, it did not provide spending predictions for that day this year.
Acxsys, which has eight large Canadian financial institutions as shareholders, created the Interac network. Interac representatives were unavailable to comment.
Supermarkets handled the most transactions and spend in December 2009. Interac debit cardholders made 82.4 million transactions at such locations to generate C$3.6 billion in sales. Discount stores had the second-most spend at C$1.3 billion from 21.8 billion transactions.
Restaurants handled the next-most Interac transactions at 51.9 million, followed by fuel service stations at 24.6 million, discounts stores at 21.8 million, drug stores and pharmacies at 18.5 million, beer and liquor establishments at 16.3 million, and clothing and accessories retailers at 11.6 million.
Sales figures for those categories were C$1.2 billion at clothing and accessories retailers, C$1.2 billion at service stations, C$1 billion for drug stores and pharmacies, $959 million at restaurants and C$811.9 million at beer and liquor establishments,
Canadians in December 2009 spent C$424.6 million using Interac’s electronic funds transfer service, which enables debit cardholders to transfer funds between bank accounts.
