Buy-Canadian backlash could hit wall

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Angry Canadians are on a patriotic shopping spree, but marketing experts warn their passion could run out of steam as emotional fatigue and regular habits set in and time and money factors start to play out.

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“While consumers are in this acute moment where they are fired up and they’re feeling all of these intense emotions, it’s very easy to be motivated to take the time to go through the stores, to scour the labels, to use the apps, to scan the products, which allows them to choose those Canadian-made products,” Tandy Thomas, a professor of marketing at Queen’s University’s Smith School of Business, said. “Over time, that becomes an awful lot of work.”

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She said the movement will lose steam unless buying Canadian becomes easy and habitual for consumers. Otherwise, we’re going to fall back into the habit of buying familiar products.

Consumers have been on a buy-Canadian tear ever since United States President Donald Trump said he would impose 25 per cent tariffs on products from Canada.

Poll after poll has shown that people support retaliatory measures in response to Trump’s tariff onslaught, while other surveys have said the number of Canadians using their shopping dollars to vent their rage and to support Canada’s economy and sovereignty is on the rise.

For example, an Angus Reid Institute poll said 66 per cent of Canadians supported a 25 per cent tariff on all U.S. exports into Canada, up from 60 per cent in January.

An earlier Angus Reid poll said 98 per cent indicated they are shopping for made-in-Canada products, while 85 per cent said they planned to replace U.S. products. Four in five said they were committed to buying more local goods, and three in five said they intended to boycott U.S. products.

It’s still early days in the trade war and Trump’s seesawing on tariffs is likely to keep emotions running high across Canada, but Thomas warns fatigue will likely set in at some point.

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“On a busy Wednesday, when you’re rushing to a grocery store and you need to grab something for dinner, there just isn’t the time and energy and the cognitive resources available to engage in a detailed, thoughtful search every single time,” she said. “Once this initial moment of sort of crisis starts normalizing a little bit, we will see diminishment of those behaviours.”

She also pointed out consumers have yet to feel the sting of higher prices. Canadian-sourced goods tend to be more expensive than their U.S. counterparts, given that the economies of scale south of the border allow manufacturers to price their products more cheaply.

Prices are set to rise on a number of items coming into Canada from the U.S. after Ottawa retaliated with $50-billion worth of duties on goods ranging from orange juice to bourbon to a range of grains.

Media reports have already emerged of producers asking Canadian grocery stores for price increases.

“We haven’t seen our friends and neighbours losing jobs yet, but once those economic realities set in, if this becomes prolonged, then there’s just going to be a simple issue that consumers are struggling to pay for things, in which case patriotism might still feel really important, and they wish they could support all these Canadian businesses,” Thomas said. “But if the question is between being able to afford the product or not, they’ll go with the cheaper alternative because that’s the only real option they have.”

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Despite those barriers, she said there are ways to keep the buy-Canadian campaign going, such as retailers continuing to make it easier for shoppers to find Canadian goods on the shelves.

“As long as those kinds of tools are in place to really nudge people towards the Canadian choices, I do think we can see this continuing on,” she said. “If it continues, if it’s hard, people won’t do it. But if retailers make it easy, this can quickly become habitual.”

Thomas also thinks Canadians are willing to pay more, up to a point, for Canadian products.

“There is a ceiling to that. Consumers can only pay what they have within their means. They are able to do that,” she said. “This is not going to be a burden that we can share equally.”

• Email: gmvsuhanic@postmedia.com

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