Canadian holiday shoppers aren’t retreating this season. They’re recalibrating. Suzana Colic, Managing Director and Retail Industry Lead at Accenture Canada, joins Michael LeBlanc on The Voice of Retail to unpack Accenture’s 20th annual holiday shopping survey and what it means for Canadian retailers heading into the most important stretch of the retail calendar.
Suzana’s path to consulting started on the shop floor at Holt Renfrew. She went on to be a merchant in Canadian Tire’s automotive category, earned an MBA, and has spent 16 years at Accenture helping some of North America’s largest retail and consumer companies through transformation.
The headline from the 2026 Accenture holiday survey: Canadians plan to spend about $717 on gifts, roughly flat with last year. The number of presents under the tree may not change much, but the thinking behind each purchase has. Shoppers are comparing prices earlier and more often, waiting for the right promotion, and trading down on one gift to trade up on another. Eighty-one per cent of Canadians plan to start holiday shopping before Black Friday and Cyber Monday, stretching the season well beyond its traditional six-week window.
Michael and Suzana debate whether Canadian retail should walk away from Black Friday, a promotional event that pulled spending forward from Boxing Day week without growing the pie. Suzana explains why an earlier season isn’t an easier one. Retailers face tougher calls on where to put inventory, whether to keep planned promotions and whether to discount products that are already selling. And no retailer can abandon Black Friday on its own.
The conversation then turns to AI in retail. Roughly 40 per cent of Canadian shoppers plan to use generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and Claude to find deals, compare products and discover new items this holiday season. Is AI just another intermediary pushing everything toward price? Suzana argues that value goes well beyond price to include product specifications, availability and delivery options. She also shares how merchants are using AI to cut through the noise and focus on assortment, pricing and promotion.
Gift cards remain the top gift choice at 54 per cent. Shoppers use them to stay on budget, along with shopping at mass merchants, buying local and supporting the Buy Canadian movement. Michael makes a bold prediction worth bookmarking: as AI-powered gift discovery gets smarter, gift card sales have peaked.
Suzana closes with practical advice for retail CEOs: build the ability to change your mind quickly. Shoppers are starting earlier, comparing more and using new tools. That makes the ability to sense and respond to demand signals across inventory, promotion, labour and marketing worth more than a perfect plan locked in September.
Essential listening for Canadian retail executives, merchants and marketers planning for holiday 2026.
Suzana Colic is a Toronto-based Managing Director at Accenture, where she has spent nearly two decades helping retailers navigate change, improve how they operate, and position themselves for growth.
Suzana leads Accenture's Canadian Retail Strategy and Consulting practice, working with clients and teams to shape and deliver business transformation programs. Her experience spans retail strategy, merchandising, operations, and technology-enabled transformation.
Before joining consulting, Suzana began her career in retail merchandising, working at two major Canadian retailers across a variety of product categories. This experience continues to shape her perspective, grounding her approach to transformation in an understanding of how retail businesses operate day to day.
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Michael LeBlanc is the president and founder of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc, a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and now, media entrepreneur. He has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career.
Michael has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, CanWest Media, Pandora Jewellery, The Shopping Channel and Retail Council of Canada to his advisory, speaking and media practice.
Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including the award-winning No.1 independent retail industry podcast in America, Remarkable Retail with his partner, Dallas-based best-selling author Steve Dennis; Canada's top retail industry podcast The Voice of Retail and Canada's top food industry and one of the top Canadian-produced management independent podcasts in the country, The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois from Dalhousie University in Halifax.
Rethink Retail has recognized Michael as one of the top global retail experts for the fifth year in a row, the National Retail Federation has designated Michael as on their Top Retail Voices for 2025 and 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him on of the Top 50 global thought leaders in retail. If you are a BBQ fan, you can tune into Michael’s cooking show, Last Request BBQ, on YouTube, Instagram, X and yes, TikTok.
Michael is available for keynote presentations helping retailers, brands and retail industry insiders explaining the current state and future of the retail industry in North America and around the world.
