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Best Buy Kills Off Future Shop
Lirodon writes: Future Shop, a Canadian electronics chain that was bought by Best Buy in 2001, but continued to operate in parallel with the newly-opened Canadian locations of the U.S. retailer, is no more. Today, the company abruptly announced the closure of the Future Shop chain, and the permanent closure of 66 of its remaining 131 locations. The remaining 65 Future Shop locations (specifically, those that weren't within driving, or even walking distance of a Best Buy to begin with) will be converted to Best Buy stores over the next few days.
This is just the latest step in Best Buy's efforts to downsize its Canadian operations and focus on online retail. The new, downsized chain will consist of 136 Best Buy stores (and 56 of the small Best Buy Mobile stores) in Canada. Still, it's sad to see such an iconic brand killed off like this.
This is just the latest step in Best Buy's efforts to downsize its Canadian operations and focus on online retail. The new, downsized chain will consist of 136 Best Buy stores (and 56 of the small Best Buy Mobile stores) in Canada. Still, it's sad to see such an iconic brand killed off like this.
People still shop there?
I used to work doing computer repairs at a Future Shop. There's was a Best Buy of the same size in the same mall. It was really weird to go deliver or pickup RMA parts from each others computer services department when the courier would get confused.
"stealing business?"
Really?
I want to buy certain items locally - like the Roccat Ryos MK Pro with blue switches, the ROG Swift monitor, and stuff like that. Best Buy doesn't stock them and I've got Amazon Prime, so why would I order from Worst Buy and wait 3-5 days for an item when I can get it next day for $3.99 shipping? (as far as why Best Buy doesn't stock the ROG Swift when they are among a very small handful of authorized retailers for that model, I have no idea.) I could drive 70 miles to Micro Center down in MA, but then I'd also have to pay sales tax. So, when I buy that monitor, I'm going to get it from Amazon.
Amazon sells MANY things brick-and-mortars don't any more. Want to find a good precision screwdriver set? I can't find a good set at Sears any more, nor Home Depot, nor Lowes, or smaller hardware stores, nor at Best Buy, or even harbor Freight. Sooo, where do I turn? Amazon.
Ass Kickin' ghost pepper hot sauce - I cannot find it anywhere local. So, where do I order that from? Amazon. Amazon stocks darn near everything you can imagine.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
True, but the monopoly happened in 2001 when Best Buy bought Future Shop to begin with. Since then, they've been taking advantage of a public that was given the mistaken impression that there was some competition, when in fact there was none.
So perhaps this will ultimately be good for competition, as customers pissed off with one won't cross the street and go into the other. Instead, they can go down the block to Office Depot...
No. Well...maybe. Actually, yes. It really just depends.
We had Future Shop and about four other chains and a ouple of local stores. Then we got Best Buy as well, selling the same things as Future Shop, at the same prices. Now we have Best Buy and about four other chains and a couple of local stores. Hardly a 'monopoly'.
I buy most of my electronics from Amazon or one of the local stores. Future Shop was usually more expensive, and the staff clueless. I never understood why Best Buy kept them around.
Big retail chains are doomed. They can't compete on price with online stores, and they can't compete on service with local stores who don't have to send most of their profits to the stock market. This has little or nothing to do with Harper, unless you believe a more left-wing government would have nationalized Future Shop to keep it open.
Most middle-class Canadians have been, or are being, forced down to a Wal-Mart level of existence.
That'll be why our street is full of new trucks and SUVs. They need them to drive to Wal-Mart, I guess.
The real surprise is why it took so long? 14 years is a heck of a long time to be running large redundant stores. From the parking lot of my local Future Shop, you could literally see the Best Buy store, and neither store was ever busy enough to really justify having two so close together, and I've heard that some were so close as to share a parking lot. It might be different if there were significant differences in the product lines they carried, but as it is it never really made much sense.
Log in or piss off.
Radio shack was a competitor because they turned into a Mobile phone shop and best buy has their own mobile phone stores.
Circuit City is long dead. The brand was bought and the domain used to sell things, but the real chain is long dead. What next, you going to mention montgomery wards?
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
This is an improvement. Cluelss people would compare prices between those two retailers assuming they were competitors in order to assess whether a price was good.
Buying from a large surface is not the answer to a good local economy ,thriving local businesses and good service. .. who do you turn to ? Got to ship the set to lord knows where at a high cost , plus pay repair plus the time you haven't a set ( Dealer used to lend you one btw ) and generally end up just adding the device to the garbage pile. .. Spend a dollar more and help everyone including yourself .
Let's take a look at the TV situation. The same principles applies to any product.
We used to have a local television dealer. Man of experience and that knew his stuff. He sold and repaired the tv sets on premises.
The shop had a few good technicians , home service , delivery pickup the whole lot. He was the tv dealer and normally had a good selection of sets.
Dealerships meant something. It meant you could count on him when the TV has an issue and he was honoring the warranty. A guy with an RCA or Zenith dealership sign meant he was good at what he does. Came the large surfaces , selling a few dollars left , People forgot that the dealer meant a place to have it serviced , good friendly advice and a place to turn to when the going was rough. Yes you paid a few dollars more.but the tech wes there , service was there at your door. That is value. Now you buy a tv in a big surface , on line
Saving a dollar is not always a good idea. That's what got us in a mess , got our local economies in a mess , makes us loose local jobs etc etc .
Next time you're at wal mart think of the local shops that give you good service , that's giving jobs to the neighbors that been there for decades with sole purpose of making you a happy customer
Ric
I've often wondered if the quality of the devices such as USB external drives are not the same as elsewhere as I have the worst luck with drives from their failing early. Maybe the staff drops them a lot or something.
Website Just Down For Me? Find out
My wife and I bought our first television (way back in the pre-HD, pre-flatscreen days) from our local Future Shop - back when they were still in the U.S. Big 27" screen... darn thing weighed close to 100 pounds. Even when I was young, that thing was a bear to move single handed.
Wait - why are memories of that horrible old beast of a television making me feel nostalgic?
#DeleteChrome
It wasn't too hard to know they were the same business - plenty of stock at future shop had best buy shipping labels on them.
Every once in a while, future shop would drop the price on something, so you could go to best buy and get it at that price minus a few percent by bringing the ad.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
I go when my deal site says BestBuy has the best deal on the item I need at that moment. Many retailers dabble (loss leaders) in areas they are not normally competitive in. The deal sites pick up on this, and people like myself benefit.
I come here for the love
Futureshop and BestBuy were literally on the same street, less than half a klick from eachother in my town. I never went to BestBuy because the one time I was there, the dumb blonde behind the counter berated me for buying the kind of keyboard I wanted.
Anyways, since Futureshop is closed now, I went to WorstBuy to see if I could get a 7200 rpm 2.5" HD, or an SSD of any kind. No SSD's anywhere, only 2 2.5" HD's, both 5400rpm. Crap... Then I passed by the cables because I needed a couple short ethernet cables. $25 for a 4' ethernet cable? Are you fucking shitting me? And these guys are complaining they're losing business.
Maybe if you fuckheads had shit people actually wanted to buy, at reasonable prices, they would buy it.
Yes. Here they call it Bureau en Gros, of course, but it's all very much of a muchness. My point is that whatever the sector, it turns out that there are several apparent retailers, but closer examination reveals that what's on offer is the same stuff, at nearly identical prices, and in fact has the same owners.
For that matter, many of the people here probably have (at least indirectly) small amounts of most of these companies in their 401Ks / IRAs / RRSPs / whatever.
No. Well...maybe. Actually, yes. It really just depends.
Actually it was pretty hard to get them to beat each other's prices. I'd generally have to make an embarassment of myself to make it happen. The mangers always argued that since they are the same company, they couldn't beat their "own price."
Seems to me those fancy trucks and SUVs you speak of may perhaps belong to the upper class? I think your confusing the 150K+ a year crowd with the middle class.
Middle class is more of a median income between that and the poverty line, most of the 30-60K people aren't out driving around in new 60K+ vehicles, most of us are the ones in the crappy older vehicles. and the rest are the ones on the bus
Seems kind of unlikely. At least where I live, the upper crust drives fancy sedans. The lower class drives fancy trucks and SUVs and the middle class drives cheap econoboxes.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
To be fair I bought a TV a few weeks back from FutureShop because I wanted to compare picture quality myself. In the end, not only was FutureShop cheaper than the local retailers, it was $50 cheaper than Amazon.
This was also true where I grew up. They opened a Best Buy there more than a decade ago, right across the street from a Future Shop. They've been operating like that ever since. I can imagine it's one of the places that they're going to close the future shop, even though it's a better location (smaller mall, easier access, bigger store) than the Best Buy.
What was once Radio Shack in Canada is still operating today. They're called "The Source" today, and they're just as bad as Radio Shack ever was, with terrible selection and insane prices. I never see anybody in the stores, so I don't really understand how they're still operating. I'd say they were a mob front (my normal explanation when a store or restaurant stays open despite having no customers) except they're owned by Bell Canada these days.
I never had that problem. In fact, they seemed to consider it a special case where they'd beat each other's prices immediately without any hassle because they didn't want to be called out on being the same store.
Canada Post, Fedex, and UPS all have freight divisions or subsidiaries who would be happy to ship a pallet of dirt for you.
I kind of liked Futureshop. They usually had what I wanted and the service wasn't too bad. Kind of fun wandering around when you're bored too.
A great band (The Sycamores of Halifax), which broke up years ago, even wrote a song about having nothing to do and going to Futureshop. Since The Sycamores are basically forgotten by the internet, here's the song, 'Future Shop Monday':
http://picosong.com/V2r8/
http://picosong.com/download/V2r8/
Future Shop salespeople were pushy.
Best Buy had overpriced outdated items that could be bought far cheaper online.
s/except/because/ strikes me as more accurate.
Log in or piss off.
Most of the people I see with those have jobs related to the Alberta oil-sands. Watch those disappear quickly now that the bottom is dropping out of that market.
It's a situation that never made any sense at all.
In a new shopping centre in my city they opened a Best Buy and a Future Shop. Wat? They had a Best Buy and Future Shop ten minutes up the Trans-Canada and then a three-minute drive from each other. Oversaturation, just slightly.
This reminds me of the piece of shit rust bucket I used to drive. I had a bumper sticker that read "Yes. I'm Compensating."
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
I call them "Bougon en Gros" - but people outside Quebec who haven't seen "Les Bougon" won't get it.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
From...?
When does dirt ship on pallets? In little plastic bags?
Dirt is delivered with a dump truck. Though, I suppose if you live in a suburb or urban hellhole this is not true.
I guess you weren't looking for > 50% price reductions like I was :-)
I'm not sad that Future Shop is finally being killed off. They were already dead once Best Buy purchased them. Best Buy and Future Shop stores were virtually identical.
I remember shopping at the original future shop to buy 5.25" Floppies and dealing with the pushy salespeople were not a good memory. Sure it was one of the few Canadian tech store brands, but definitely I'm not shedding any tears now that it's finally completely dead.
RIP Future Shop
Almost a million dollars (CDN) for any decent-sized house that isn't a dump.
You must have only looked in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal. Anything upwards of about $600,000 in the London area gets you an absolute mansion.
As an example: 4 bedrooms, 4 1/2 bathrooms, a huge lot, inground pool, 2 car garage, tons of landscaping, fountains, etc, for $715,000.
http://www.realtor.ca/propertyDetails.aspx?PropertyId=15394802
If that place qualifies as either a dump, or too small, then you have no right to bitch about the price of property, because you must pretty much be a 1%er.
Take a look at the $700,000 - $800,000 range:
http://www.realtor.ca/Map.aspx#CultureId=1&ApplicationId=1&RecordsPerPage=9&MaximumResults=9&PropertyTypeId=300&TransactionTypeId=2&SortOrder=A&SortBy=1&LongitudeMin=-81.48207731193361&LongitudeMax=-81.01035184806642&LatitudeMin=42.886606758167304&LatitudeMax=43.087019589728655&PriceMin=700000&PriceMax=800000&BedRange=0-0&BathRange=0-0&ParkingSpaceRange=0-0&viewState=m&Longitude=-81.24621458&Latitude=42.98689485&ZoomLevel=11&CurrentPage=1
There are plenty of huge houses, 3 car garages, etc, in there.
If you want to look at the more realistic for most people range of $300,000 to $400,000:
http://www.realtor.ca/Map.aspx#CultureId=1&ApplicationId=1&RecordsPerPage=9&MaximumResults=9&PropertyTypeId=300&TransactionTypeId=2&SortOrder=A&SortBy=1&LongitudeMin=-81.48207731193361&LongitudeMax=-81.01035184806642&LatitudeMin=42.886606758167304&LatitudeMax=43.087019589728655&PriceMin=300000&PriceMax=425000&BedRange=0-0&BathRange=0-0&ParkingSpaceRange=0-0&viewState=m&Longitude=-81.24621458&Latitude=42.98689485&ZoomLevel=11&CurrentPage=1
You'll still find plenty of very nice houses in there, too.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
I could never stand Best Buy...just personal experience but their customer service and sales environment was crap. FutureShop always gave me more positive vibes, and most of the time their sales reps were a lot friendlier. Granted, I tended to buy more from Staples anyway, but still sad to see Future Shop go...
The American economy is predicated on the idea that your home, your food, and your clothing should be made of cheap garbage so that you can spend all your available income on fuel-guzzling oversized vehicles and glamour electronics.
All of which become obsolete and/or wear out fairly quickly, as traditional wealth measures go.
And the really smart people have done the math, and bought a fairly used but still reliable vehicle (ie: closer to $5k then $10k), that's gets at least 30 MPG. They maintain it at the dealer because they know he's only going to screw them over on the official bill; rather then screwing them over by trying to use plumbing parts in a car*. Then they drive it for at least a decade.
The easiest way to lose $3k a year every year forever is insist on having a recent-model $30k vehicle in your driveway at all times. The second-easiest is to try to keep a $500 hooptie running 365 days a year if you aren't a skilled mechanic.
*Yes this actually happens. No I do not understand why someone would think a part meant for room temperature to possibly 130 Fahrenheit would work in a fucking internal combustion engine for any meaningful period of time. But I have actually witnessed a backstreet mechanic spend an hour trying to find the plumbing fitting that matched the one he'd pulled from a car.
Clueless! Hardly clueless! The staff with rare exception were perfectly able to pick up the box and read it to me when I asked them a question about a product.
Certain kinds of products are moving online. But I have a feeling the electronic retail stores are making their money on selling refrigerators, freezers, washing machines, dishwashers, TVs and everything else too big to fit an ordinary parcel. A lot of other goods are selling on look and feel where people want to see the actual product in person, I got burned on this before Christmas when I bought something that... I mean all the specs and images were correct, but it was just underwhelming in reality. I certainly don't think they're worse off than specialty stores. The thing is, when people look at specialty stores what they often want is the selection, not necessarily the service. Online stores can often have an even wider selection and really there's no better service than getting what you want. I guess if you really want useful help but I suffer from a general distrust of clerks/salesmen, are they really helping me or their profit margin. Most of the time I'd rather trust my own judgement.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
In the Canadian marketplace The Futureshop was one of the worst players. They went out of their way to destroy other businesses and companies, as could be told by the amount of lawsuits they had filed against them over the years. They had questionable ethics but for a time they were winners of the marketplace.
But the marketplace changes. when they were bought by Best Buy they created this stupid illusion of competition by opening a Best Buy directly opposite a Futureshop. Futureshop had the better price, but Best Buy actually had the stock. We all saw through this pathetic attempt and over time just stop trusting them. Best Buy retracted last year, they're killing the name off this year which still boils down to slimming down the stores and retracting the business again.
Overall a marketplace that has spoken, and dumping a crappy company. How much longer before we watch the liquidators come in and clear out the morally and financially bankrupt Best Buy.
Depends on the market.
My job at Home Depot is probably more threatened by the current management's obsession with cutting labor costs then larger market conditions.
Lots of people, including contractors, would rather go a store with six locations in the County that has everything they need, with better then 50% chance of having a guy who can warn them about the tricky bits; then buy from a company with no locations in Cuyahoga County; or buy from a location with a 100% chance of having that smart guy on the other side of the fucking County. Especially since the specialty shop on the other side of the County is likely to have higher costs, because half it's staff aren't kids just out of high school thrilled to be getting 25 hours a week at $9.25. Which means management's unstated goal on replacing the $10-$20 an hour guys with said kids is much more of a problem then the Internet.
The internet is actually helpful, because it's really hard for Amazon to compete with Home Depot on shipping concrete.
It's quite common to deal with macho men in Fort Mac who work in the oil sands for days on end with heavy machinery, yet who have penises that are most appropriately measured in millimetres.
If size is an issue in that region, why don't you look somewhere else for your fill of penises?
lucm, indeed.
Anything upwards of about $600,000 in the London area gets you an absolute mansion.
That's what happens when an entire region relies on Blackberry.
lucm, indeed.
Take a look at the bigger picture with the canadian economy. We never really had the same sort of crash as the americans in 2008. The middle and upper classes were insulated by artificially low interest rates and the encouragement to start flipping more and more property. Harper and his cronies dropped interest rates so low, and screwed with the housing market so much that the entire economy is now built on debt, subprime mortgages and oil.Oil is down for the count, people simply cannot take out more mortgages, and debt is at an all time high.
It is not a surprise to me that people have run out of debt now (despite a thoroughly panicked boc dropping interest rates AGAIN on the 15th of april or so I hear...). The dollar is tanking too if you haven't noticed, which really sucks for buying things from america. The american economy recovered, our depression was glossed over and hidden by the conservatives over the last 7 years with the stupid policy of low interest rates. Now they are desperately trying to bribe people before the election and are praying that the shit does not hit the fan before that.
The conservative government is all smoke and mirrors while they are here, and when they get kicked out, it will be someone elses mess to fix.
Futureshop and bestbuy are the same store and have been since 2001. The greatest trick they pulled in this country was convincing canadians that they had the ability to comparison shop for electronics by visiting just those two stores. They had a good racket going, but now the internet has come so far as to be the real competition. So yes the company is doing the right thing by consolidating brands, but harper has also messed up the economy so much, that people simply don't have any more money to spend. The retail sector feels that first, so they are the ones having to reorganize to stay afloat.
The canadian landscape is littered with large department store chains that have folded. I am old enough to remember shopping at towers, which was sold to zellers at exactly the same time as the last major housing correction. Funny how consumer spending and housing affordability is inter-related isn't it?
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Just for those curious, you CAN get dirt shipped in very big plastic/kevlar bags that are strapped to pallets. This is similar to the way certain heavy (coffee being one that is just starting to move to this) food shipments are being handled. Of course, it does require a heavy loader, flat bed, straps for the flat bed, and roads improved enough (and all year enough if its not summer and dry) to get your shipment to you. These bags can even be air lifted by CH-47 helicopter (I believe it can carry up to 2 of them, but I'm not well versed in this method of transport). These are not the 10-20-40lb bags of toil soil you see for sale at the lawn and garden shop (although the larger plastic bags could just as easily be stuffed with them, and those 10-20-40lb bags can be wrapped on pallets and shipped as well.
The shipping will cost a lot more than buying local, but you will still pay shipping then too, and still need loading equipment.
I've often wondered how northern Canadians tough it out when it melts and during the very heavy drifts when its hard to get supplies in. The latter is probably easier to deal with than the mud though!
Freedom is merely privilege extended unless enjoyed by one and all.
Why do we allow these mergers in the first place? Oh yeah profit.
First of all, this is the norm among industrialized economies. Perhaps Norway is different. I haven't checked since the fracking boom.
Second, the thriving middle class was a fairly short lived affair, centered around three decades from 1950–1980. Most affluent societies have now returned to pre-1930s levels of economic inequality. Historically, an affluent middle class is the exception and not the norm.
I had a college roommate whose brawny younger brother dropped out of high school with few skills and somehow got a job with the CAW at a starting wage north of $70,000 per year, back in the early 1980s. He soon had a wife and children, a driveway filled with expensive motor toys, and cash-flow problems.
He was almost certainly employed at a factory making automotive products that discerning consumers—those of us lacking misty-eyed Big Three loyalty—did not wish to purchase.
Meanwhile, high school drop-outs trying to scrape by on non-union wages weren't necessarily doing much better than those same people today, a major difference being that the majority of those fantasy union jobs have now gone away.
Someone needs to get in a time travel booth to go back to the early 1970s to inform the CAW management group that no matter what course of action they chose, their business model (high union wages for semi-skilled labour) could not survive selling shit product. Marketing the hell out shit product was a short-term solution at best (Future Shop—ultimately—not excepted).
As much as the Reagan and Thatcher plutocrats initiated a self-serving destruction of the middle class, the middle class itself was hardly blameless.
Now it's time for the plutocrats to determine whether they can recognize how they are painting themselves into a non-viable corner before they encounter a messy corrective force of their own seeding.
Beware, fellow plutocrats, the pitchforks are coming
The only thing Iconic about Future Shop is that it charged 200% to much, had horrible tech service and completely unqualified and untrained works who couldn't even pass a simple IT / Tech Test. I had an interview years ago at Future Shop for a tech position and at that time, I held more certificates then the "Manager", who claimed your A+ ( which is a joke ), was qualification, this was in high school.
I shopped at both (since the FS and BB closest to me are full sized stores 30 feet from each other) and always got them to price match. They don't price match open box or liquidation items (which most other price match policies don't either) but for everything else I never had an issue.
I routinely got them to price match each other since they often staggered their sales so an item on sale at FS one week would be on sale at BB the next. Besides the extra 10% off the price match gave, it saved me having to run around town to the location where a sale item was in stock.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
The bougon nickname is the same as "Crappy Tire" for Canadian Tire, "WallyWorld" or "WallMutt" for Walmart, "Future Sh*t" for Future Shop, "Worst Buy" for Best Buy, etc. I've bought from all of them.. What I haven't done is succumb to buying on-line. My experience is that if you wait a bit and shop around, you can always get a better deal locally.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
That was Business Depot not Office Depot. They weren't bought out they were the same company but there was an issue with trademarks so they couldn't call them staples. I guess at some point that got dealt with.
One of my first job was working at the East end Business Depot in the early 90's right behind Future Shop.
Want to know where they are burying FS as I want to piss on their grave. Oh the stories I could tell about their lack of ethics (let alone skeevy sales practices)....
...those that weren't within driving, or even walking distance...
Strange phrasing.
Not really. The Future Shop near me was not in the same parking lot as a Best Buy, but it was just a short 2 minute drive from one. As you've seen, some of these pairs were located within the same mall.
The Canadian middle class is being crushed out of existence. NAFTA has played a big role in this, as it resulted in much manufacturing draining directly to Mexico. Subsequent trade agreements have not helped. At the same time, there has been a huge flood of immigrants, most of them from third-world nations. The lack of work, combined with a large population increase, has resulted in higher levels of unemployment, along with higher housing prices.
Middle-class stores, including large and long-established chains, are closing throughout Canada at an astounding pace. Zellers is gone. Target never really got off the ground. Sears is on its way out. Many of the mid-sided clothing stores have gone under lately, are in the process of going under, or are just about to.
The middle-class retailers that have survived so far have often done so only by dropping their quality levels, or moving into higher-end goods. There is a stunning degree of economic polarization: either you are quite wealthy, or you are very poor. This is a huge change from what the country was once like, when it had a robust middle class. Most middle-class Canadians have been, or are being, forced down to a Wal-Mart level of existence.
The same holds true for the USA. However, regarding BestBuy, I have no tears for them. They were usually a "list price + 50%" business. As an example, I bought hdmi cables (6foot lengths) for $3.00 each, BB's price was $39.95ea. I purchased several "wireless mouse"s at $6.00ea, BB was $25.95 for the same product.
So, if you are seeing desktops at $1000, when they should be retailing at $550.00, you know the reason why. Its called "what the market will bear+10%"
As competition becomes stronger, BB will have to compete or close. In my area, they were advertising packaged food deals.
More examples
DDR3 ram should be in the $2-$3 per gig (8gig dims for $25.00, not $50.00). Manufacturing and distribution costs are less than $10.00/8gig dims
As BBs prices come down so they can compete. so will prices follow from Amazon and NewEgg and TigerDirect and the others.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Most middle-class Canadians have been, or are being, forced down to a Wal-Mart level of existence.
That'll be why our street is full of new trucks and SUVs. They need them to drive to Wal-Mart, I guess.
Yes, and you will note, they are not purchases, but two family incomes paying a lease.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
You blame the union members and the unions.
You blame them when the decision to sell shit products and ignore quality issues was an upper management problem, and remains to an upper management problem to this day.
Because if that responsibility doesn't lie with upper management, then why do they get paid fucking rockstar salaries? What do they do all day, financial masturbation?
--
BMO
thats waterloo region not london. And waterloo prices are still going up.
Blackberry is not the only tech company in waterloo. Google is building a masssive office
Then we have a bunch of other hightech firms such as comdev, opentext, toyota
If they're not careful, they'll catch up to the scales of evil Comcast and Walmart have sunken to! http://gizmodo.com/babmost-hat...
You'd think that was true - and it was for awhile - but it isn't now. Many of the eTailers in Canada have pricing that's pretty close to the box stores when you consider shipping, but then you're getting an item that's sight-unseen and the hassle of possible returns. U.S. eTailers had better prices, but international shipping, - as well as the bend-me-over brokerage fees that UPS/Fed-Ex charge - dramatically raises the price of any cross-border online shopping. With the Canadian dollar in the shitter, that extra %20 makes it even worse.
So, unless you're ordering something from China (that you're willing to wait longer for, though pay much less for many things), there's no bargain there.
Where Future Shop f**ked up was the have box locations but stock-wise they're pretty much an online-store. Their video selection locally was pitiful, and everything was "if you'd like, you can order online and have it shipped." That does save you the shipping, but levels the playing field for Amazon-et-al dramatically in terms of wait-time etc
I tried them for some computer stuff, and even online their selection was pretty bad. I mean, if you're going to have an online store... why not increase your selection a bit?!
Canadians might not say it or act like it, but they are quite nationalistic when it comes to brands and companies. What I've seen is that american brands have had trouble penetrating that market because preference goes to the incumbent local company. Target is struggling to gain acceptance, Canadian Tire is still the go-to, and even major e-tailers like Newegg have trouble over the other Canadian e-tailers. Hell, Sears seems to have won mindshare by having a little maple leaf in their Canadian logo. They may not like to hear it, but Canadians are just like Americans in that regard. A lot of people I've talked to buy Apple precisely because they see it as an American brand.
Unless you mean iconic in how they try to make the cheap TVs purposely look bad to sell the expensive ones, and then tack on a $7 HDMI cable that somehow rings up as $89.
thats waterloo region not london. And waterloo prices are still going up.
London prices are still going up, too. Our house is worth about 60-70% more than we paid for it roughly 12 years ago.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......