The busiest and quietest times for last-minute shopping in Calgary

As the December days fly by and the last-minute holiday shopping rush becomes increasingly urgent, a few general rules hold true for shoppers every year.

When it's time to shop, especially later in December, visiting shops earlier in the week and avoiding peak hours is always key.

CBC News spoke with Teresa Sinopoli, chief product officer with Environics Analytics, a marketing services firm, to back up these notions and analyze what times work best in Calgary.

After assessing five major shopping centres in Calgary, Sinopoli says the data shows that visiting malls Monday through Thursday is best to avoid crowds and get in and out of stores as quickly as possible.

And regardless of what day it is, avoiding evening commute times, between 3 and 6 p.m., is ideal.

Instead, Sinopoli said late mornings and midday visits work better, and if you have to shop on the weekend, at least try to avoid Saturday.

This wisdom isn't just true of large malls, or power centres as they're sometimes referred to in retail. The same logic applies for other shops during the holiday season.

"These themes around the malls are pretty consistent with power centres and retail strips. A lot of this is common sense," Sinopoli told CBC News.

Environics gathers its findings from mobile movement data that pulls from data captured by location-enabled cellphone apps, and trends in mobile movement through cellular networks.

The information it picks up is all privacy compliant, without names, phone numbers and other identifiable details. Instead, the data shows Environics the postal code where that phone tends to reside during the evenings, and what characteristics are typically associated with people who live in that postal code.

The advice for shoppers about when to visit shopping malls is especially helpful because of the month-long Canada Post strike, which the Canada Industrial Relations Board recently ordered to end. The strike made it more difficult for shoppers to reliably order gifts online to be delivered.

"Given the postal strike as well, I do think a lot of people are going more and more to brick-and-mortars to be able to actually have something under the tree," Sinopoli said.

CBC News spoke with several Calgary shoppers, out looking to wrap up their holiday shopping, who echoed Environics' findings.

Heading to the mall on Tuesday is preferable to a visit later in the week, said Momal Hashmi.

"There's less crowd and you can think more," Hashmi said.

Dean Dreger agreed that shopping earlier in the week is a better idea, noting he was stuck in a large crowd at Costco on a recent weekend. He said he waited half an hour to fill up on gas.

But his advice also captures the time of day when shoppers should try to complete their shopping.

"Early in the morning, the sooner the better," Dreger said.