I had the exact opposite experience, but I used mec for ski and backpacking gear. Everything I needed was always at the downtown store and I left seton empty handed. So stopped going there.
I do agree that clothing should be a support product line for MEC, not their main focus . Downtown still has a good selection of gear.
MEC were great for their own branded clothing, which was a reasonable price. But MEC gear has been garbage for a long time and just doesn’t seem to get any better.
Ultimately, operating a physical store is a tough business, especially if it’s the same brands as competitors but without any of the sales. When they killed off their app my MEC purchasing went way down.
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Originally Posted by Krovikan
It's all subjective; however, I thought the DT location was terrible (haven't been there since 2019 though). They shoved all the bike gear into a corner, and they were always out of the parts I needed and lost most sales to their competitors.
The Seton one always had the parts I needed; however, yes MEC is/was going towards a clothing store. They were attracted to the high-value margins of the overpriced sports clothing industry and started pushing that. Letting their competitors take them on, and lost them a lot of customers.
Sports clothing is a good addition to average customers spend; however, it isn't a good primary one and any business lured to make it their primary by the margin in my opinion is doomed to fail.
Side note: I think this is a failing of the coop model, you get people running it who "think" they know what they are doing, and lose track of the member, First Calgary (Connect First now) is doing a similar thing in my opinion. But worse, there last board election was a farce mean to protect the board from deserved member wrath.
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