Free parking and yellow bag promotions – but ya gotta have a bag and you have to shop to get one.

November 28, 2013

By Pepper Parr

BURLINGTON, ON.  The city advanced the FREE PARKING in December by a day to give the downtown merchants a chance to get it on the Black Friday craze.

This year – look for this decal in the windows of stores in the downtown core.

if you were a member of the BDBA attending the Awards night – you didn’t get to leave without a couple of dozen yellow bags to use as part of the shop the Neighbourhood promotion. Jenn Walker – head of the Marketing Committee hands them out.

The merchants in those stores might put your purchase in a small yellow shopping bag.  And, if you choose to stroll along Brant Street swinging that bag someone might approach you and pop a small gift item into your bag.

The downtown merchants have used special shopping bag promotions in the past. Last summer we all got to see BDBA General Manager Brian Dean in shorts that must have been on sale somewhere.

It’s part of the Burlington Downtown Business Association’s Shop the Neighbourhood – a promotional tie in with the Yellow Pages people who piloted in Oakville recently.  Shop The Neighbourhood is an initiative of Yellow Pages Group (YPG), a company with a century-long legacy of working with Canada’s small businesses, helping them attract customers and contributing to the growth of local economies.

BDBA has done this sort of thing in the past – quite successfully.

This season with free parking for all of December the major push on the part of city hall to get people downtown adding an additional promotional  consideration won’t hurt.

It’s a one day push – the idea is to get people to be downtown and not be ticked off with having to pay parking. 

Burlington has let itself get charmed into that free parking at the malls – which isn’t free but rather a cost built into the rent merchants in mall locations pay.