It’s one of the busiest shopping days of the year: on Boxing Day, thousands of people flock to malls and big box stores to find great deals.

“We’re expecting a lot of customers,” said Hashmeet Singh, store manager at Best Buy in Calgary. “It’s going to be one of the biggest Boxing Days I’ve seen in a long time.”

“We may expect between 8,000 and 10,000 people to enter the store today,” he estimated.

But while the larger chain stores are drawing the crowds, it’s been a tough holiday season for some smaller businesses.

“It’s still going to be slow,” said Judy Weselowski, manager of the downtown Winnipeg book fair.

2024 has been full of disruptions for retailers – two port strikes, the rail dispute and most recently the Canada Post strike – which have had a major impact on holiday deliveries. Weselowski says they felt the crisis.

“The strike didn’t help,” she said. “Our comic shipments were delayed because all the couriers were trying to deliver all the mail too.”

“People were trying to find another way to get their packages out, so there were delays that way.”

The federal government has tried to help small businesses during this difficult time.

Ottawa waived the five per cent GST on certain products starting December 14th and will apply until February 15th. The two-month tax holiday was proposed to make life more affordable for Canadians struggling with high costs of living.

However, this tax break has left many confused as to which products are tax-free.

“Something that showed up at the last minute and was thrown at us is complete nonsense in our eyes,” said Ryan Gobeil, sales and service manager at Eliminator RC in Winnipeg. “No matter how you look at it, there is no easy way,” he told CTV News on Dec. 12.

Boxing Day traffic has declined in recent years, but retail analyst Doug Stephens says this year could be a little different.

“First, we continue to see increasing gift card sales, which are kind of bucking the trend,” he said. “More and more consumers are receiving gift cards, and more and more of those cards are being used on a day like today after the holidays.”

“But in terms of, ‘Are consumers kind of dragging their way back to the mall?’ We don’t see that yet.”

A report from RBC Economics earlier this month showed that retail spending slowed in November, with holiday spending over the Black Friday weekend slightly below 2023 levels.

But despite the decline, Canada is likely on track for a modest increase in retail spending per person in the fourth quarter, for the first time since mid-2022, according to the report.