Best Buy and Sears Layoffs

[edn88]

Originally Posted by JazzyFlame

The reason they put two stores close together is to block competition from coming close by saturating the area, its a strategic approach.

And apparantly that strategy has worked too well.

[Bonded]

I have to say, I loved the online grocery delivery Safeway had in San Francisco.

[GreatWhiteEbola]

Originally Posted by Bonded

I have to say, I loved the online grocery delivery Safeway had in San Francisco.

Sunterra Market offers this service.

You Order. We Deliver.
Breakfast, lunch, dinner on the table - and you never had to leave the house. Your grocery list delivered to your door on the same day. For more information:
Calgary
Call 403.287.0553 or visit www.sunterramarket.com

Co-Op did it too for awhile, I don't think they do any more.

This service really helps with my agoraphobia.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Best Buy just opened another store in Calgary too, on 17th. It's a bizarre location, 2nd floor of the building. It was dead dead dead when I went on a weekday last week.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

I don't agree with the notion that retail is dead.

After a decade of buying almost exclusively online for everything and hunting for the best prices for < $2500 items, I've recently started shopping at retail almost exclusively instead out of convenience, getting the item right away, price matching with online, and liberal return policies.

The biggest problem and missing factor with online shopping is the hassle of returns and exchanges.

Certainly, for a vast array of items (smaller electronics, entertainment media, disposable goods, etc.) you are almost always better off online, but other more expensive items, complicated items, big ticket items, there needs to be a retail space.

Also, as has already been mentioned, shipping and availability is atrocious in Canada. Many good deals are U.S. only. When Canada improves in that arena, retail would be in even more trouble.

These are definite limiting factors to online purchasing, but they are quickly changing. In the USA, overnight shipping, easy return mechanisms, etc.. are all very much in place with many online retailers. Canada is slowly coming around. It's just a matter of time until many of the gripes you have are ironed out.

[Rudee]

My Nephew worked at the Futureshop at Macleod Trail South location. He came to work today and they had a lock on the door and a security guard in place. Nobody was allowed in the premises. He said a Manager told him that the monthly rent for that particular location had increased from $10k a month to $40k since the place first opened in summer of 2011.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Rudee

My Nephew worked at the Futureshop at Macleod Trail South location. He came to work today and they had a lock on the door and a security guard in place. Nobody was allowed in the premises. He said a Manager told him that the monthly rent for that particular location had increased from $10k a month to $40k since the place first opened in summer of 2011.

Makes sense. Huge opportunity for discruntled employees to "compensate" themselves. If I was FutureShop, I'd do the same and then liquidate the goods to another location.

[FanIn80]

Originally Posted by HOOT

I never understood why they put a Best Buy right beside Futureshop at the new Uptown mall here in Victoria. Then just before that put one out in Langford 5 minutes away from another Futureshop. Didn't really seem like a great idea from the start, guess they found out the hard way.

Originally Posted by Daradon

Same with Deerfoot meadows here in Calgary.

Originally Posted by Bmuzyka

And Northland Mall. Who would put it side by side in the same damn mall?

The reason they do this is to instill a false sense of competition amongst their customers. If someone doesn't like the selection at one store, the salespeople will often suggest their "competition" across the street. This is done in the hopes of appearing to be "on the side of the customer" as a tactic for gaining their trust. Customers are expected to see the salesperson as trustworthy (a rarity) and decide to stay in the store and buy a similar item from them, rather than go across the street and risk getting ripped off (the typical expectation of a shopper).

They (the company) will also play price-matching schemes on the customer, knowing that it doesn't matter which store gets the sale, and for which price, since it all goes to the same company - and the customer is left with the feeling that they got a good deal, because the store matched a "competitor's" price. What the customer doesn't realize is that the particular item's price was raised by $50 at one store, in order to drive sales of the same product at the other store.

I've often thought about doing some sort of undercover work, in the interest of writing some kind of expose piece about how this company operates. I just don't want to have to work at either of those stores ever again. (I worked part time at one in the evenings about 6 years ago for the employee discount, and again at the other for a few months while I was in school. There just isn't a strong enough word to describe the scams and practices this company will attempt.)

I could go on and on... things like selling previous generation Apple products for the same price as current ones, unless the customer pointed it out. Then they'd pretend it was just a stock mixup and offer them a discount on the old product, or go into the back warehouse and grab the current one. In fact I remember getting a lecture once on "proper retail practices" because I was telling customers about the new, updated Macbooks and selling them instead of trying to sell out of the old ones first (at the exact same prices).

tl;dr version: No one should ever have any amount of sympathy for Best Buy or Future Shop. They are the same company (Best Buy owns Future Shop), and they are certainly not your friend.

[LockedOut]

I wonder if they'll close the Future Shop in Northland. It's pretty close to the Future Shop in Beacon Hill and there already is a Best Buy in the mall. Also traffic in the Beacon FS is kinda slow so they might want to increase traffic from Northland to Beacon.

[Bertuzzied]

Originally Posted by Rudee

My Nephew worked at the Futureshop at Macleod Trail South location. He came to work today and they had a lock on the door and a security guard in place. Nobody was allowed in the premises. He said a Manager told him that the monthly rent for that particular location had increased from $10k a month to $40k since the place first opened in summer of 2011.

How can that be? Wouldn't Futureshop have a lease in place?

[InglewoodFan]

I live close to the Macleod Trail FS and it was a great place to shop, even around Christmas it was never terribly busy. Which I guess was the problem.

I'm not sad to see one particular sales guy there out on his ass. Everytime I went in there and picked up something ~$200 or more, with no help from any salesperson because I did my homework before I even got there, this same greasy sales dude would come running up to the cashier and have them put the sale under his commission. WTF greasy dude, you did nothing to help me. Wonder how he got away with it, must have been chipping off a piece to the cashiers.

[FanIn80]

It's difficult to trust something their manager says to an employee. It's not about the manager being dishonest, it's about what the manager has been told to tell the employees - and it's usually something far from the truth.

[JazzyFlame]

Originally Posted by photon

I'm the opposite because Best Buy wasn't on commission so the sales people were usually FAR easier to work with.



Competition from all the other electronics big box stores in Canada?

Heh, re: Macleod FS:

1. Close store.
2. Tear down store.
2. Wait.
3. Rebuild store.
4. Close store.
5. ???
6. Profit!

It would give opportunity for other big box stores to move to Canada.

They have self saturated the market, its a great move.

[Rudee]

Originally Posted by Bertuzzied

How can that be? Wouldn't Futureshop have a lease in place?

I don't know the details. Those are just the numbers he repeated to me that was told to him by a Manager there. What's crazy is that they just opened up that location in 2011.

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by Bertuzzied

Time to bring back Krazy Krazy and their krazy calgary sun ads!

Whoa! Blast from the past!

One of those things I never would have remembered unless I heard someone else say it.

[Bertuzzied]

Originally Posted by Daradon

Whoa! Blast from the past!

One of those things I never would have remembered unless I heard someone else say it.

You can buy a VCR with 4 heads for $1299!!!

or a radar detector for $500! hahaha Krazy!

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by Bertuzzied

You can buy a VCR with 4 heads for $1299!!!

or a radar detector for $500! hahaha Krazy!

Didn't a Betamax have 3 heads and a VHS have 2? What VCR had 4?

Unless I am thinking of something else and confusing the terminology 'heads'.

Heh, Betamax. Sweet.

[Bertuzzied]

Originally Posted by Daradon

Didn't a Betamax have 3 heads and a VHS have 2? What VCR had 4?

Unless I am thinking of something else and confusing the terminology 'heads'.

Heh, Betamax. Sweet.

Only the rocking Vcrs' that were top of the line with the WIRED remote control!

I even had a 6 head vhs near the end. That thing cost me over $1500 but had a flying erase head bitches!

[DuffMan]

Originally Posted by Daradon

Didn't a Betamax have 3 heads and a VHS have 2? What VCR had 4?

Unless I am thinking of something else and confusing the terminology 'heads'.

I could be totally wrong but back when VHS machines were tens of thousands of dollars, you could rent them from the video store with the videos. Then you would get the 2 head models that could only play. 4 heads could play AND record.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by JazzyFlame

It would give opportunity for other big box stores to move to Canada.

They have self saturated the market, its a great move.

What other Big Box stores? Best Buy killed everything in the US as well (CompUSA, etc.) and are dying down there themselves now.

In Calgary at least, I wonder how Memory Express is making inroads into the home theatre market?